Ferrari looking for improvement

(Scuderia Ferrari via Twitter)

 

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali has admitted that his team need to 'improve everywhere' if they hope to challenge for this year's championship. As Formula One heads to Bahrain this weekend the Italian team find themselves in third place in the Constructors championship 38 points behind leaders Mercedes.

 

Speaking to the teams official website ahead of this weekend's Bahrain night race, Domenicali said:

 

'We knew from the very beginning that with these rules changes the challenge will be massive, When we went about designing the 2014 car we knew it would not only be a matter of the engine - where we believe we are quite strong - but also a matter of considering the whole power unit.

 

Kimi Raikkonen returned to the Italian team replacing Felipe Massa for the 2014 season and has endured a difficult start to his second Ferrari career. In the opening round of the championship in Melbourne the Finn finished the race in 7th place, picking up 6 point's. While in Malaysia he finished 12th having started the race from 6th on the grid after he involved in an incident with McLaren's Kevin Magnussen. Raikkonen is pinning his hopes on some new developments that he has asked for that will appear on the F14T for this weekend's race where he believes that he will be faster then he was in Malaysia.

 

Fernando Alonso has had a slightly better start to the season as in the opening two race's the Spaniard finished collected two fourth place finishes and he is just happy that so far he has been able to beat Raikkonen in the races.

 

While the team has struggled during the start of the 2014 campaign. Domenicali believes that it is not necessary for the team to build a completely new car, saying 'that is a bit extreme'.

 

When asked where the team need to improve the F14T the Italian stated:

 

'I don't think by fixing one problem you fix the whole performance - so we need to work to have a more efficient car; we need to work to have a better engine; we need to work to exploit better the balance between electric power and traditional engine power. Everywhere!'

 

It will be interesting to see how the team get on in the next race's and it is more than likely that the Italian team will bring a major upgrade to the car for the start of the European season in Spain in May.

 

©Ben Johnston 2014