Costa: Ferrari ‘quite satisfied’ with KERS
Ferrari technical director Aldo Costa has revealed that he is pleased with the progress of the Italian team’s Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), despite several reliability issues interrupting their scheduled programme during this week’s Bahrain test.
Over the past three days, the Ferrari has covered more than 300 laps of the Sakhir circuit. But a problem with the system's cooling element marred Kimi Raikkonen’s Tuesday running, while gearbox and electrical troubles limited Felipe Massa’s time in the car on Wednesday.
“There might be some problems ahead, like the ones we've had over the past two days with the completely new components of the KERS, or with experiments, like the ones we had on the gearbox,” explained Costa on Ferrari’s official website. “(But) as far as the KERS is concerned I have to say that we're quite satisfied with what we've seen so far, although there's still lots of work to do.”
With just one more day of testing in Bahrain left, Costa is already refocusing his attentions towards next month’s two Spanish sessions, and is particularly looking forward to supervising a more comprehensive evaluation of the F60’s aerodynamics.
“We used a standard configuration for the aerodynamics here in Bahrain, with just some minor updates," he added. "The complete one we'll see at the next tests in Jerez and Barcelona, where we will conclude our preparation for the Australian Grand Prix."
Once the Sakhir test is over on Thursday evening, Ferrari will return to their Maranello base in Italy to analyse the data they have gleaned, ahead of their return to the test track at Jerez in March.
