Ferrari Struggle To Find Pace


By DCX
May 7 2005

Despite a strong showing at the San Marino Grand Prix, Ferrari was not up to pace during Friday practice in Spain. Michael Schumacher went 4th quickest in FP 1 and 13th in FP 2, while Barrichello set no time in FP 1 and was 11th in FP 2.

Badoer Prepares Ferrari

Ferrari Struggle To Find Pace

DCX
Michael Schumacher
FP 1: 4th - 1'17.574
FP 2: 13th - 1'18.042

After a fantastic drive from 13th to 2nd at the San Marino Grand Prix, Michael's first outing in Spain wasn't extremely promising. In the first practice session Michael did reasonably well, taking the fourth fastest time behind de la Rosa, Klien and Heidfeld, respectively. Unfortunately, Schumacher was still almost two seconds off of Pedro de la Rosa's fastest time in the McLaren Mercedes. Schumacher's second run was substantially slower with Ferrari's number one driver almost three seconds off the fastest man, which was once again, Pedro de la Rosa. Here is what the 7-Time World Champion had to say about his first day In Spain:

“Our performance today did not look very promising. We must now analyze all the data to see in what areas we can improve the car. Tomorrow morning’s work will involve the usual job of finding the right compromise between being quick over a single lap for qualifying and being able to maintain a strong race pace. We did plenty of laps today, so we have all the data we need to achieve that.”

Rubens Barrichello
FP 1: No Time
FP 2: 11th - 1'17.702

Coming off of several disappointing results so far this season, Rubens came to Spain looking to turn around his season, however, if today's running is any indication is anything to go by, he won't be able to do that. The Brazilian did not turn a lap in the first session as his car was suffering from yet another technical problem. This time Rubens' car was plagued by a hydraulic problem, luckily the team was able to sort this problem out before the second session. Barrichello ran several laps to get the necessary data to set-up the car for the rest of the weekend, none of which were particularly very fast. Here is what the Brazilian had to say after his disappointing first day:

“I did not run much this morning because of a hydraulic problem with the car, which was then identified and solved. In the afternoon, I did some good runs which produced plenty of useful data. I think that overall, we are not in as bad shape as seems to be the case if you just look at the times. We know what small changes we can make to the car to be much stronger. As usual on a Friday, we don’t really know what the opposition has done, so it is hard to get a clear picture of the situation. I am optimistic because the situation is quite similar to Imola, in that we can expect to have a very competitive car for the race.”

Ross Brawn
Technical Director

Ferrari's Technical Director Ross Brawn is concerned with Ferrari's immediate pace, but he is certain the car will be faster come race day. Here is what Ross had to say:

“We had some technical problems today, which slowed our program slightly. But the team recovered well and we made up for lost time in the afternoon. I hope the rest of the weekend goes smoothly. We did the usual comparison between the two types of Bridgestone tyre and I think it is pretty clear which way we have to go. I think we can have a good race pace. The challenge will be in doing a similarly good first qualifying lap and work on that will start tomorrow morning.”

May 6, 2005

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