It is well documented that Ferrari effectively gave up on their 2009 season to focus attention on the 2010 challenger. Wraps came off the F10 yesterday in Maranello but already rumours suggest that the new car’s performance figures are a cause for concern.
The British Times newspaper claims that ‘rumours are sweeping the Italian media’ regarding the performance of the car which has yet to turn a wheel in anger and that Ferrari could be hard at work on a new chassis to be introduced during the year.
Such rumours are commonplace however as teams – such as McLaren last season and Renault in 2008– found huge gains in performance through their wind tunnel programmes with the existing chassis and without the need and additional expense of building a b-spec machine.
Speaking at the launch on Thursday, Alonso said that the pre-season test programme will focus on heavy fuel runs courtesy of the refuelling ban that is in place this year and that the team would only then look at pure performance of the F10 challenger.