Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has acknowledged that Ferrari will need to take risks in an attempt to overhaul Mercedes’ advantage and that their true performance has so far been clouded by bad luck.
Speculation over the winter largely revolved around whether a radically redesigned Ferrari would be able to take the fight to Mercedes. With the Silver Arrows being the sport’s pre-eminent force since 2014 – claiming all but six of the possible race victories in their two title-winning campaigns – Ferrari have faced a large gap to bridge.
As such, it seems that the engineers at Maranello have taken design decisions which have jeopardised reliability, in search of performance. A handful of technical gremlins befalling drivers’ Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in the opening rounds have highlighted the negatives of this approach.
However, Arrivabene stated in Friday’s FIA Press Conference that the team need to take risks in order to challenge the Brackley based team.
“We have tried very, very hard in development and faced some bad luck,” Arrivabene acknowldged. “As I have said before, this Mercedes team is the strongest since the last ten years. To be able beat them, you need to take some risks and you need to work very, very hard.
“I am talking about this with respect for them, but with determination that sooner or later we can catch up.”
Ferrari’s pace during FP2 ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix was promising, with Raikkonen’s qualifying simulation taking him to second place on the timesheet, a mere two-tenths away from Nico Rosberg’s FP2 benchmark. Long run performance on the medium compound tyre was also comparable between Mercedes and Ferrari.
The former, however, typically conceal their true pace until later in the weekend. It remains to be seen how much the two outfits have in reserve and whether Ferrari can continue to match their chief rivals – in terms of both pace and reliability – as the weekend progresses.
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