Ferrari’s wind tunnel problems still hampering progress

Ferrari has blamed a lack of correlation between wind tunnel results and on track performance for their recent slip in form.

The Scuderia has seen it hopes of challenging defending champions Red Bull fall away at recent races, without a win since May’s Spanish Grand Prix, the team had now dropped to third behind Mercedes in the Constructors Championship and sits just ahead of Lotus, who are 9 points adrift.

Simone Resta, the chief designer of Ferrari’s 2013 challenger, the F138, has placed the blame for the team’s recent slip in performance on a lack of correlation from the latest updates designed in the wind tunnel, which simply seem to not work as expected when placed on the car at the racetrack.

“The reason for us struggling at the last few races is us not bringing to the car parts that are working," he added. “If anything we have brought parts that are not working better than the others were."

The Maranello based squad have been using Toyota’s wind tunnel at Cologne, while their facility receives an upgrade after encountering a number of problems in 2012, with the work expected to be finished later this year in time to be used with the design of the 2014 car.

“We were struggling [last year] and we are still struggling," said Resta. “We are working in an external wind tunnel as we improve our one, which will take the rest of the summer. So it’s been a problem, but we are working on sorting it out."

Despite these problems the team are still hopeful that the newest updates planned for the next three Grand Prix will get Ferrari’s season back on track.

“We have a lot of components for Spa, Monza and Singapore so we continue to work race by race."