It's been a seriously long drought for Scuderia Ferrari and the team has never been hungrier for a championship title. A double offensive, not only will Ferrari focus its efforts on perfecting the 2013 season F138 Formula 1 car, but Ferrari is doing a lot of work behind the scenes to give their team an edge as well.
Ferrari has confirmed that the company is currently revamping its wind tunnel right now as it has temporarily shifted its aerodynamic testing in a Toyota facility. What's more, the legendary team has enlisted the help of Spanish veteran Pedro de la Rosa to help test drive and develop a new team simulator to challenge McLaren and Red Bull Racing as well.
On Ferrari's final day of testing, de la Rosa only managed to complete 51 laps before the car started to smoke from a fire behind the driver.
The team later confirmed that the car suffered a premature gearbox failure that also damaged other components and bodywork, ending De La Rosa's session.
"When I stepped out of the car on the installation lap when the gearbox broke I was not feeling very happy," said de la Rosa. "You wait for an opportunity like this for all your life and then suddenly after a few corners you have to step out of the car. It was not clear if we could continue or not because some parts had caught fire, so it was not looking that bright.
"I must say it was mixed emotions. I was very excited and then had a low, but the mechanics did a fantastic job to turn the car around and we had a sensible afternoon. That's critical because of how expensive one day of testing is now, you have to make use of it. Mixed emotions but very happy at the end when I could put in competitive laps in the conditions that we were running. It will help as well because there is a scientific approach behind these test, it is not like just throwing Pedro in the car. We have a program behind it and this is the good thing about it."
Despite the shortened testing session, Pedro de la Rosa is confident that the team has recorded enough information to input into the simulator. "I realize now how the real car handles and what is the level of grip of these modern F1 cars compared to what I had last year, which is very different. This is a very good, solid platform, to work for the next few weeks in our simulator."
Pedro de la Rosa added that Scuderia Ferrari has to make significant gains to get its simulator on par with its leading rivals. Prior to the latest project with Ferrari, de la Rosa has previously acted as a test driver for McLaren's simulator as well, possessing a clear benchmark on just how far behind Ferrari's software is.
"The goal is simply -- to see where we are with the car, where we are with the simulator and see how we can get them closer together," said de la Rosa.
Beyond the simulator, de la Rosa also mentioned that the Ferrari F138 possesses all the characteristics of a fast car. However, as per PR relations, the Spaniard remained mum on the details.
"I know when it's a good or bad car, yes, but it doesn't really matter because the most important thing is how much it will develop until Australia," said de la Rosa. "It doesn't really matter where you are here, it's irrelevant. People have been using soft tyres, medium tyres and hard tyres on low and high fuel, so it doesn't really matter. We have a good pace, that's all I can say. The car is sensitive to changes and has a good front-to-rear balance and we just have to work to improve it for Australia and also to understand the tyres, which is very difficult around here [at Jerez]."
Be sure to watch the catastrophic gearbox failure in the video below:
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