Despite Ferrari’s remarkable display the last time out in Malaysia with Sebastian Vettel putting Ferrari back on the top of the podium for the first time since former driver Fernando Alonso’s home win at the Spanish GP in 2013, the team’s technical director James Allison believes it is “not realistic” for the Italian based team to challenge Mercedes foe the title.
However with the German three points behind reigning champion Lewis Hamilton, some people believe they could challenge Mercedes for the title even after just two races, but James Allison believes that the team are lacking in two main areas compared to Mercedes.
“Mercedes have a bit more horsepower and a bit more downforce. Until we have closed those two gaps, it’s not realistic to talk about title challenges.”
Ferrari suffered their worst season in 21 years in 2014, but there is no doubting that the red cars have turned their fortunes round this year and have had a massive step up in performance, and because of this Allison did admit that there is no reason why the team can’t revise their aims for the 2015 season.
“We thought it was realistic to score a couple of wins,” Allison said. “We’ll take whatever comes our way and will do our best to close up [the gap] as much as we can. But sticking with the objectives we set at the beginning of the year is still realistic.”
Going into the Chinese GP, Ferrari do once again look to be the silver arrows closest challengers with Kimi Raikkonen finishing an impressive second fastest behind Brit Lewis Hamilton.
“For us, target number one is to be right behind Mercedes. You have to accept they are very strong and then as the season goes on we will try to get closer and closer.” Vettel said.
Lewis Hamilton told media that he feels Ferrari are just as fast as they were two weeks ago in Sepang however he believes his car is quicker this time out.
The two time world champion said “The Ferraris look like they are just as quick as in the last race but hopefully we’re quicker. Generally, it looks like it is going to be quite close.”
