Formula 1 News

2009 Chinese GP, practice: Ferrari quotes 

Chris Dyer: “We worked mainly on evaluating the two types of tyre made available to us here by Bridgestone, in terms of Sunday’s race. Here, the softer tyre seems to work better to what we saw in Australia, while the harder one has performed as we had expected. We had no technical problems during the three hours of practice and we were able to evaluate new aerodynamic solutions, that, today, were fitted to Felipe’s car. Tomorrow, they will be used on both cars.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “The balance of the car isn’t bad and one doesn’t feel the lack of KERS. The point is that we are too slow compared to the teams currently at the top of the order. We must try and improve the car: at the moment, we are not able to fight for the title. We must not give up the fight because, with the whole team working hard, we can get back into a winning position. It’s not an easy time, but our group is strong and we know what needs to be done to get out of this situation. The softer tyre seems to work better than it did in Australia.”

Stefano Domenicali: “It turned out much as we had expected. We will have to run a few races on the defensive and try and do the best we can. Clearly, without KERS, we lose a bit of performance and initial indications are that we are not seeing any improvement in the balance of a car that, let’s not forget, was designed to carry this system. We are in a difficult situation and we must try and stay calm and work hard on all fronts. President Montezemolo was keen to give a sign of support for everyone who lived through this tragedy and we are proud for our cars to carry the name of a region of Italy which is very close to our hearts, especially at a time like this.”

Felipe Massa: “We are in a difficult situation on the technical front, but when one thinks of what happened to those who we are close to and in the daily life of the people of Abruzzo, everything else takes on a different perspective. I hope that having the ‘Abruzzo nel cuore’ message on the cars, as requested by President Montezemolo, might help to make these people feel less alone. As for the track, I can say our fight for the championship is ever more compromised. Here we are also running without KERS and as a result, we are losing even more performance, in addition to not having as much aerodynamic downforce as the best cars. We must try and push as hard as possible on the development of the car, but we know it will be very hard to catch up. The only recipe for getting out of this difficulty is to work.”

source: Ferrari