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[Guest Viva Alonso]

Ferrari has vowed to up the aggression level of its F10 development programme - after admitting it wasted too many resources in recent weeks on getting its F-duct to work.Despite having not won a race since the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, the team remains a strong contender for the world title - and victory in Canada last weekend for Fernando Alonso would have put him at the top of the standings.

With Ferrari introducing a major update to its car in Valencia, which is set to include the low blown exhaust concept that is helping Red Bull Racing so much, team principal Stefano Domenicali is aware of the need to ramp up its efforts.

"For sure there is a need for a more aggressive push," said Domenicali. "It was clear that we had concentrated too much effort on this blown rear wing - we spent a lot of effort there, being not focused on the other areas of the car.

"From Valencia onwards the focus will be to develop other areas of the car apart from this blown rear wing, because it is a complicated system that took a lot of resources out of our team."

Domenicali reckons his team could have done better in Montreal last weekend, where Alonso fought hard with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button but lost out badly lapping backmarkers.

"We could have done much, much, more in terms of result," said Domenicali. "The performance that we had was really good, honestly, and the car was exactly the same as it was in Turkey where we were nine tenths behind.

"We need to be prudent before we do something exaggerated on one side or another. For sure the tyres are a key factor – and here we did the right choices in that respect."

He added: "Going back to the championship, it is very, very open. I did a calculation that if we had won the race we would be leading the championship with Fernando.

"It means that everything is really very, very open and that is the motivation that we should have inside to make sure that we push race-by-race. Canada gave a picture that was totally different from the picture we had two weeks ago."

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Pirelli's return to Formula 1 edged closer on Sunday when the Italian company held formal talks with teams at the Canadian Grand Prix.The company's director of motorsport, Paul Hembery, was seen in discussions with a number of outfits and representatives of the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) throughout race day in Montreal.

Although Hembery did not speak about the progress of talks, it is understood that the main focus on efforts in Montreal were on sorting out a formal contract for Pirelli to become F1's tyre supplier.

[Guest allyphint]

''...Domenicali reckons his team could have done better in Montreal last weekend, where Alonso fought hard with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button but lost out badly lapping backmarkers...''

hehehehe

[Guest Viva Alonso]

''...Domenicali reckons his team could have done better in Montreal last weekend, where Alonso fought hard with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button but lost out badly lapping backmarkers...''

hehehehe

If I was at Macca I would be worried.... realy worried.... that if Alonso did this well with basically the same car as the previous race then hell whats he gonna do with the major updates???? .... yes... worried I will be.... hahaha

[vlagman 1,549]

''...Domenicali reckons his team could have done better in Montreal last weekend, where Alonso fought hard with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button but lost out badly lapping backmarkers...''

hehehehe

Olifant, Even Hamilnochio admitted that he got lucky with the back markers. See my post on the Canada thread.

"However, he admits he got a bit lucky with the traffic when he leapfrogged Fernando Alonso while they were both trying to pass Sebastian Buemi.

"Traffic was the opportunity for all of us today to get past the guy in front and I capitalised on that," Hamilton said."

[Guest allyphint]

All in a days work Oom Vlaggie.

I'm just spicing up the forum for Mr. Viva

Just glad Brawn is not winning anymore.

[vlagman 1,549]

Olifant if you want to spice it up by backing Hami, you are heavily outnumbered if you take on me and Viva on your own. you should wait for JoJo and a few others for back-up. Wonder where Solar is?

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Ferrari will run a KERS-equipped car in every race of next year's world championship, team boss Stefano Domenicali has revealed. The confirmation was made after the F1 teams met in Canada to discuss technical matters relating to the 2011 season.

Adjustable rear wings are also set to debut in order to boost overtaking, and FOTA's ban on using energy-recovering KERS systems is to lapse.

Some teams including Ferrari had pushed hard to make the KERS systems much more powerful in 2011, but agreement has instead been made to lift the minimum weight of the car-plus-driver

[Guest DennisL]

Not lucky Vlag, Lewis was just being ever so modest! AS usual! If he had said it was a brilliant move Wolvie/Viva and Coenie Oosthuizen would be up in arms about his "arrogance" sagain! You see, the poor bloke just can't win against the pro-red brigade, whose little fiat is sort of stumbling along in a silver wake. [The other one was playing how's-your-father with the noobs and has-beens in mid-field] Poor ol' Fonsie just got himself out-driven! Twice!! Could do nothing even when the McLarens cruised around to the end of the race saving fuel. Hope they will be a bit more competitive in Valencia.

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Not lucky Vlag, Lewis was just being ever so modest! AS usual! If he had said it was a brilliant move Wolvie/Viva and Coenie Oosthuizen would be up in arms about his "arrogance" sagain! You see, the poor bloke just can't win against the pro-red brigade, whose little fiat is sort of stumbling along in a silver wake. [The other one was playing how's-your-father with the noobs and has-beens in mid-field] Poor ol' Fonsie just got himself out-driven! Twice!! Could do nothing even when the McLarens cruised around to the end of the race saving fuel. Hope they will be a bit more competitive in Valencia.

Must say Im impressed with Lewis .... he growing up to be decent young man (no more uncle Dennis.... o and daddy around haha)

Seriously... a year or two ago he would have said it was a brilliant move instead of what it was.... just an opportunistic move assisted by slow (monkeys at the back:rolleyes: ) backmarkers ..... but we all know these kind of things happen and next time it might be Lewis being buggered around by the "monkeys at the back"

Same goes for Fonzi.... he has grown a lot too, the last few years.... thereby giving the anti Alonso brigade a lot less to post about. hahaha

For anyone to say it was a "brilliant move" .... tsk .... man you guys are satisfied with a little!! haha .. was a good move nothing more nothing less .... example of a brilliant move was Massa on the two Force India's!!!

and an example of someone being "outdriven" is what most of the field did to Schumi hahahaha

[Guest DennisL]

Must say I'm quite astounded that you think an overtaking move on the GREAT Fons could possibly anything less than Brilliant! But, then you must sort of be between a rock and a hard place with that one, eh? If you say it was brilliant you paint Lewis bright, but if you say it was ordinary, this implies anyone could take The Fons! HEHEHE!

However, that was a good comment about the maturity levels of both of them! Yeah, they're no longer in the Seb, Buemi, Hulk, Nico, group, but now forming a group of young "Seniors" !

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Can we do polls on this site? would love to see how many consider that overtake as a Brilliant move vs a good overtake?

I have seen Lewis (and others) doing overtaking moves that are a BRILLIANT!! .... sorry no matter who the driver was under any other circumstances I will still see it as a good overtaking move... but then my standards are high hahaha

[Guest allyphint]

Interesting that Hami fans are outnumbered by the 'old school' it seems.

Viva, do a poll on who supports who, instead of the brilliant move. Please.

[Guest Viva Alonso]

I think you might be wrong Elliphant .... me thinks there is more Hamster fans on this board .... well if you look at the introductions topic, it seems that way..

Can we do polls? and how???

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Martin Whitmarsh has heaped praise on his McLaren drivers following their 1-2 in Canada, saying they are "the two best racing drivers in the world today."

!!!!!!!!!! Huh? ....... the two best???? one of them is one of the best the other not even close!! ..... what the hell is MW smoking I want some of it... hahaha

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Wolf there is hope mate !!!!!!

Fernando Alonso's third place in Canada might have been a victory were it not for Jarno Trulli's Lotus being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But any disappointment at Ferrari might be very short-lived - because they have something up their sleeve for the next race that might just catapult them to the front.

The car with which Alonso was fighting for victory in Montreal was virtually identical to that which had qualified eighth and 12th, 0.7 seconds off the pace, in Turkey two weeks ago.

The very different characteristics of the two tracks is the only explanation for the car's wildly differing form.

At Istanbul, the Ferrari was losing almost 0.5secs to the Red Bulls through the fast Turn Eight, whereas at Montreal there are no fast corners, only long straights connected by slow turns.

The Ferrari has very good "mechanical" grip - ie grip derived not from aerodynamic downforce but the mechanical qualities associated with its suspension geometry and kinematics, braking, traction and general dynamics that dominate at low speeds.

This was pretty much all that was required for Alonso to have the tool at his disposal to dissect the tricky track's demands.

Could he have won without the untimely baulking by the Lotus just as he was set to leapfrog past Lewis Hamilton?

That's open to debate but he would almost certainly have passed the McLaren at that point. Whether he could have remained in front for the duration of the race is less certain.

With Alonso hot on Hamilton's tail, McLaren had brought their man in on lap 26. Usually, whichever guy comes in first is at a strategic advantage, in that he will be on his fresh tyres while his opponent is still on the worn ones.

At Montreal that was not the case because the medium compound tyres were taking about three laps before they came up to full working temperature. So as Hamilton rejoined he was unable to lap particularly quickly. Alonso, by contrast, had kept his tyres in great shape and, with the McLaren out of the way, was now flying.

With Hamilton lapping in the one minute, 21 seconds as his tyres came up to temperature, Alonso reeled off a 1min 19secs, already enough to have cleared the McLaren, and it was as he was maintaining that hot pace on his in-lap that Trulli got in the way through turns six-seven, costing Alonso about two seconds. The near-certainty of passing the McLaren had gone.

Later Alonso lost even his second place to more traffic - Hispania's Karun Chandhok checking the Ferrari's momentum and allowing Jenson Button by.

But Button had already been putting a lot of pressure on and the fact that at this stage of the race Button was clearly quicker than Alonso poses the question of whether Alonso would have had the pace to have remained in front of Hamilton even if he had managed to get ahead at the stops.

Maybe he could have hung on but it would have been a case of controlling the combative Hamilton in a faster car at a track where passing is possible. Possible but not easy.

Montreal, although it does demand a little more downforce. So the Ferrari should be set to be competitive again anyway. But it is likely to be even more so, given that it receives a major aerodynamic upgrade that the team is very excited about based on what they have seen in the wind tunnel. Central to this is a new Red Bull-like exhaust-blown rear end.

It is widely believed that an intrinsic part of the Red Bull's stunning performance to date has been this feature, wherein the exhaust gas scavenges the airflow around the diffuser and rear beam wing much faster and more efficiently.

Rumours are that it is worth as much as 0.7secs per lap - coincidentally about the average qualifying deficit Ferrari has had to Red Bull to date.

Ferrari are said to have been staggered when they saw in the tunnel just how much this feature improved things.

Other teams are also working on their own versions - with McLaren, Renault and Williams expected to introduce their versions at Silverstone but that gives Ferrari a one race head start.

If it all works as well as the tunnels suggests and Red Bull cannot find a similarly sized chunk from a car that already has this feature, we could well be looking at a very serious title challenge from Ferrari into the second half of the season.

[Guest Wolverine]

hehe - Please note that not ONE Ferrari fan slammed Hami or even Buttock for those 2 moves!!!

they were good - and took good advantage of the situation.

As I noted - Buemi and Chandok for concrete shoes in Italy!!!!

Buemi has a Ferrari engine for crying out load, TRAITOR!!! and Chandok was being lapped!!!

Death is too good for them.

[Guest Wolverine]

GREAT news Viva!!!

Hell - about time too - and Red Bull will rue all their little mistakes!!!!!

they should have been SO far ahead by now!!!

[Guest Viva Alonso]

GREAT news Viva!!!

Hell - about time too - and Red Bull will rue all their little mistakes!!!!!

they should have been SO far ahead by now!!!

Yip... RBR should heve been leading by minimum of 30 points!! and that crash will come back and haunt them too.

Opposite is true for Alonso.... with all his bad luck and mistakes he should have been behind by a 100 points hahaha

[Guest Wolverine]

Fonsi has done well to be where he is!!!

if he'd done BETTER he'd be in the lead

those mistakes might cause a few tantrums before the year is up!!!

the bottle of Stroh will be a pleasure to part with for a WDC for him!!!

by the way - a few posts back you did something that requires the obligatory swig of drain cleaner...

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Fonsi has done well to be where he is!!!

if he'd done BETTER he'd be in the lead

those mistakes might cause a few tantrums before the year is up!!!

the bottle of Stroh will be a pleasure to part with for a WDC for him!!!

by the way - a few posts back you did something that requires the obligatory swig of drain cleaner...

NO!!!! what did I do now?? .... hahaha pass the draincleaner mate!

[Guest Wolverine]

Must say Im impressed with Lewis .... he growing up to be decent young man (

need I say more?

BIG swig for you!!!

[Guest Jo-Jo]

Omg, how did I miss that! You go Viva!

[Guest Viva Alonso]

Argggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!! it tastes bad!!!!!!!!!

Promise I wont do that again Wolf!!!

[Guest Wolverine]

I'm SERIOUSLY starting to worry about you Viva!!!