Ferrari: Pat Fry, “Reliability will be fundamental”

This weekend's Australian GP is the most anticipated Formula 1 race for many years. If the category had become rather predictable in recent years, this season promises to be the opposite: impossible to predict who will win the first round of the season in Melbourne also because the main question is: who will finish the race? Or, indeed, who will start it?

During the winter tests the aspect we worked on the most was reliability but now it's time to get on track and, ready or not, the teams must start focusing on the race weekend. “From a mechanical point of view there is a huge increase in the complexity of the cars and therefore in the tests we also practiced, with Melbourne in mind, on assembling the single-seater and replacing components in order to be ready for any eventuality” – Scuderia Ferrari Engineering Director Pat Fry told www.ferrari.com – “During the tests we worked 24 hours a day taking turns to make sure the F14 T was ready, because in Melbourne there will be some regulatory restrictions on the hours during which work is permitted".

Fry admits that this year the race weekend could be completely different to the past: “In recent years the reliability of the Formula 1 cars has been incredible, but this season the complexity of the projects will put the resistance of the single-seaters much more at tough test, especially in qualifying and in the race." While reliability concerns will dominate the early races, managing the new power train promises to be a long puzzle for drivers and engineers to piece together. “In certain races we will be at the limit with fuel and we will have to do our best to save on it,” explains Fry. “In fact, our objective for the race will be to find the best balance between the type of power, electric and thermal, and consumption”. Once the teams have found this balance they will have to worry about the "traditional" factors linked to the performance of the aerodynamics and tires which will certainly be present again this year.

The area in which Scuderia Ferrari has no worries is that relating to the drivers. Fernando Alonso and his new teammate Kimi Raikkonen put three world titles on the table in Melbourne and three victories on the Albert Park track.