FEBRUARY 3, 2012

Domenicalli: 'it is all down to how it performs'

Ferrari Team Principal Stefano Domenicalli commented on the release on the new Ferrari F2012 chassis in Maranello today.

"Well actually its not really so pretty from my personal perspective, but this is a value that doesn't count in Formula 1. As you know these kind of choices are coming from both technical regulation constraint and the choices to try to maximise the performance of the car. As our chairman has said, it doesn't matter if the car looks nice or not - it is all down to how it performs."

"My challenge now is to keep the people who work at Ferrari motivated and make sure that everyone is working in the same way. There are a lot of expectations on us this season and we know that, and we need to make sure we stay fully focused on the job.

"I asked for a change in the approach of the design of the car, and from what we can see from the car we have launched just now its a very different approach both from the mechanical point of view and the aerodynamic point of view."

"I am sure our car will be winning right from the beginning. We have learned many lessons from the past, and taken some difficult decisions. But I am sure all our efforts will be represented with this car."

Chief designer Nikolas Tombazis defended the look of the new car.

"The nose has an ungainly shape on the top, and that is the result of the regulation that requires us to have the nose quite low but the dynamic desire to have the lower part of chassis as high as possible Even though it is not aesthetically pleasing, we believe it is the most efficient aerodynamic solution for that area of the car."

"There have been some rumours saying that this car is ugly and I have to confess that I am not objective on that, as I don't share that opinion. I have got used to the bump on the nose. I think the rest of the car has been the fruit of a lot of detailed work.

"An ugly car is one that doesn't win and a beautiful car is one that does win. So, for now, I want to believe it is a beautiful car and we will have to review that after the first few races."

"This car is still destined to change quite a lot before the first race We have been working in the wind tunnel and the design office on aerodynamic upgrades of the car - but we also have some very important experiments we want to carry out in the first tests so we can finalise the first race configuration."

Technical director Pat Fry said, "A lot of people have said a lot of things, and it is a bit of a step away from where we have been," he told the official Ferrari website. "Certainly we have taken a few more risks on the basic car layout and things like that, but all in all everyone has done a good job."