Tombazis: “I would give the Ferrari season up to this point a 6”

Nicholas Tombazis, chief designer Ferrari, sees the glass half full and although by his own admission the team could have done more, he can approach the Spanish GP with a smile and aim to beat his main rivals.

“I believe that the first findings allow us to be reasonably optimistic for the rest – he took stock of the site ferrari.com – We are in a position to be able to have our say both for the individual victories and for the final one; However, if I had to evaluate our overall performance at the moment I would only give it a 6 out of 10, due to the potential expressed in qualifying which in the four grands prix held so far has not allowed us to fight for pole position and for having scored fewer points than expected . Of course we also achieved a very important goal like the triumph in Shanghai, but it's not enough."

On the obvious steps forward compared to recent seasons, he explained: "We have studied and implemented a path of changes both in terms of general organization and technical methodology and this set of innovations has allowed us to begin the year in a better way even if the renewal process is only halfway. To give an example, we identified and intervened on the areas in which we had been a little lacking, noting that in certain roles the staff were under too much pressure to the detriment of the time necessary to make the single-seater more performing and at the moment it seems that the findings are been good."

Finally a prediction for Barcelona: “All competing teams will arrive with a high number of updates. Obviously we will also have a new package, but for the moment I don't want to go into too much detail. I can only anticipate that the new features will concern the bottom, bodywork and wings. Despite the few kilometers available, our objective will be to have a clear picture at the end of the second free practice session, so as to be able to evaluate on Friday evening which new components to confirm for the weekend and which to possibly remove. It will then be important to verify that the feedback arriving from the track is in line with the data obtained from the wind tunnel."

Chiara Rainis