No KERS for Ferrari in China

Stefano Domenicali

The Scuderia Ferrari will not use its kinetic energy recovery system, KERS, during this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix. according to team principal Stefano Domenicali during a press conference in Shanghai.

“It will take time to catch up. Because for us, this decision means that we must change our diffuser and in order to do that, we must change the rear of the car. If we do a good job, we should be ready by the time we return to Europe for the Spanish Grand Prix: at least, that is our current target. As for the cost, it will cost a lot because we need to work in the wind tunnel, as well as redesigning and rebuilding the rear end of the car."

“Regarding the decision, as I said already yesterday, I am waiting with interest to see the full explanation behind it. It is strange in a way, looking at it calmly, that such a very long and difficult subject took little time for the court to resolve, therefore seeing the court’s exact deliberation will be very interesting. What I can say now is that the situation should not have reached this point."

"The matter should have been resolved before the start of the season, in a very clear way. All of Formula 1 must learn from what has happened, because these events are not good for the image of the sport."

"Another issue is that it could have repercussions and cause a rift among FOTA member teams, as it is clear that tensions are now quite high. This is not a good situation as FOTA is very important for the future of Formula 1. These points will be discussed by us in a meeting scheduled for after the Bahrain Grand Prix."

“As for the rest of the championship, we can expect to have a very difficult time.

I am sure Ross’ (Brawn Mercedes) car will be flying away and we will be trying to catch up as quickly as possible. But the more races that go by as you try and find the required performance level, the more points they will score. I am not saying we are already waving the white flag, because this is not in our mentality and we will fight right up to the moment that we can no longer win."

“Looking at the situation at the moment, we must be rational and therefore divide the picture into two parts: one part and it is a significant one, is linked to the diffuser, which has a major effect on performance."

"On the other side, we have to admit that, so far we have not performed well in that we did not have the necessary performance level, there were some reliability issues and we also made some mistakes. We have not worked up to our usual standard, so now we must react to reach the level we should be at. It is important to remain rational when looking at this and it is also important when referring back to the appeal and the court hearing, to understand that this is not a fight between Ferrari and Ross Brawn, as I have seen in some papers. It is a simple case that seven teams had a different understanding to the three teams that were challenged. This is not a personal fight."

“We found a problem with the KERS on Kimi’s car in Sepang and we have therefore decided not to run KERS this weekend in Shanghai. We need to understand what happened to the system from the point of view of safety and reliability. It has delivered a performance benefit, but if it is not running safely and reliably, we can no longer take the risk of running it."

"This weekend, we must therefore do the best we can with what we have and await the new developments on the car, while going back to basics in every area. To sum up, we are not happy and we must react immediately. I know the strengths of this team and I know that all the people are working flat out. It is important to remain cool and calm. So our hopes for Shanghai are to take home what we can. It will be difficult to win in terms of our performance level, but we must do the best we can."