- Ferrari
Ferrari's weak points are clear
Ferrari technical director James Allison says the weaknesses of the team's car are clear this year, but admits it will not be the work of a moment to fix them.
Allison joined the team last year but arrived too late to have any significant impact on the design of this year's F14 T. Ferrari has struggled since the start of the year with its under-powered and overweight power unit but is also lacking downforce to the top teams.
"The weak spots are fairly clear," Allison said. "We don't have as much downforce as the people that are quicker than us, we don't have as much power as the people that are quicker than us and our car is too tricky to drive. It's got too loose a rear end and even with two drivers who are extremely sensitive drivers and gentle on tyres it tends to chew its tyres a bit quickly. It's very easy to point out where those weaknesses are, it's somewhat harder to set out a programme to address it, but that's what we are up to."
Allison is leading the project to improve the team's competitiveness next season and said he had shown the plans to Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen in recent weeks.
"Both our drivers have had our programme set out in front of them, and both of them had the opportunity to give us feedback, as they do on a continual basis about the weaknesses of our current cars. It is a great thing when the driver buys into what you are doing and we make an effort to try to make sure that they can see the plans that we have in place.
"Kimi is quite new to our team, and Fernando, I guess, has had some years of being with Ferrari and has not yet attained the goal that he wanted when he joined us. I guess he has sat through a few of these meetings already, I hope the presentations that I put his way, as well as a few of my colleagues, have been convincing but I guess you need to speak to him to get his view on that."
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