MARCH 4, 1996

Ferrari heads for Melbourne test session

THE Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne this weekend will be little more than a test session for the Ferrari team. The Italian outfit has been struggling to test the new F310 Grand Prix car for the last week, but unreliability and bad weather mean that Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine head to Melbourne with a serious shortage of testing miles.

Irvine finally got the chance to run in a F310 last week at Fiorano but was unable to run many miles. The extra day of practice in Melbourne will certainly help the team to put some mileage on the car, but it would be optimistic at best to suggest that the cars will be competitive. And with time very short between the Australian race and the two South American Grands Prix at the end of the month, it may not be until mid-April before the team gets to grips with the new car.

In an interview in Germany last week, Schumacher continued to stress the fact that he is not expecting much this year and that Ferrari is building up for a championship challenge in 1997.