Ferrari satisfied with F2005 debut 01 Apr 2005
The Ferrari team deemed their new car’s first outing in Bahrain on Friday a success, despite a gearbox problem keeping Rubens Barrichello in the garage throughout second practice.
Third drivers aside, Michael Schumacher and Barrichello set the pace in the morning’s opening session at Sakhir and in the second the world champion finished fifth, marking a significant improvement over the team’s form in the previous two races in Australia and Malaysia.
“The new car seems nice and consistent and is doing everything we expected from it,” commented technical director Ross Brawn. “Therefore, that is cause for satisfaction. Everything seems to be going well with the car, including its cooling, which is pleasing given the high ambient temperatures here.”
Ferrari boss Jean Todt was slightly more cautious in his assessment: “On the one hand, Michael had a good day, allowing us to get a deeper understanding of how the car functions in race conditions. The performance of the car-tyre package leads us to believe that it has an encouraging potential, thanks to the great amount of work carried out by the team and our partners – first and foremost Bridgestone.
“On the other hand, there is Rubens’ gearbox problem, which prevented him from running in the second hour of practice. We are currently analysing the cause of the problem.”
Ferrari have had a poor start to the season by their standards, scoring just ten points to Renault’s 26 in the first two races, prompting the team to bring forward the F2005’s introduction, which was originally scheduled for the Spanish Grand Prix in May.
Summing up their first day with the car, Todt added: “As usual on a Friday, the results are hard to understand. In general, it is too early to have a clear picture and we will have to wait until tomorrow and Sunday for that.”
