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Ferrari pleased with F2012 evolution

Ferrari's chief designer Nikolas Tombazis admits that he is pleased with the team's reaction in developing the F2012 in to a competitive car.

Having rolled out a radical new design at the start of the season, Ferrari found itself well off the pace at the opening race in Australia. In qualifying trim especially the car was well adrift, but the team has managed to improve rapidly through the early part of the season and is now in a position to challenge for pole positions and race victories regularly.

Tombazis told the official Ferrari website that the progress was the result of a large effort from the team during what he described as an "intense" period.

"It's all down to a huge amount of work, from a large number of people, with particular emphasis on aerodynamics, design and production," Tombazis said. "It's been intense over the past few months resulting in a big improvement in car performance. We have worked with determination to deal with all the negative points we picked up right from the first test in the winter."

Tombazis explained the evolution that had occurred within the exhaust area after a new configuration was introduced for the last race in Canada.

"The exhaust layout in Montreal was a cousin of the one we tested in Jerez at the launch. The former one was more complicated and created various problems for us which meant it did not contribute much in terms of lap time or making the driver feel it was a benefit. We therefore abandoned it, while addressing other weaknesses on the car, until we reached the first major change which came in time for the Spanish Grand Prix. That had a different, central exhaust configuration, at a point when we had effectively reviewed the entire car, from its front wing, the diffuser, the rear wing and turning vanes and brake ducts, producing what was in aero terms effectively a new car. However, we kept working on the exhausts to develop a more robust and simple system, but it still related to the original one and that is what we introduced in Canada."

While clearly pleased with the progress being made with the F2012, Tombazis revealed which further updates would be introduced in Valencia this weekend.

"At the moment, we are reasonably satisfied with the point we are at now, given where we started from. However, we cannot be totally happy, as we are not in a position to dominate races, or indeed to win all of them, which is always one's objective. We have very strong competitors who are also continuing to develop their cars and we feel this technology race will continue to the end of the season.

"Our work is continuing at the same intensity and, our plan is to introduce developments at every race, starting with Valencia: this weekend we will be experimenting with the front wing and the floor, while having further evolutions of the exhausts. We already have other updates in the pipeline for subsequent races and I believe this will continue right through to the very last race."

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