OCTOBER 16, 2006

Ferrari to take tweaked V8s to Brazil?

Ferrari has nothing to gain from playing it safe in Brazil and we hear that the Italian team is heading to Interlagos with its V8 engines tweaked to much higher levels of revs in an effort to power Michael Schumacher to victory. This is possible because the engine Michael will use will be a new one and will not have to last for two races, which means that the team will be able to run it harder. If it holds together Michael will be in a position to win the World Championship if Fernando Alonso fails to score, if it blows up the team has lost nothing as there is only a slim hope of winning the Constructors' Championship. Schumacher dominated testing last week in Jerez de la Frontera and rival teams are indicating that Ferrari was running 20,000rpm on a regular basis.

There is still a question mark over whether it was this approach that led to Michael's engine failure in Japan or whether the team has upped the revs since then.