Ferrari technical director Pat Fry says he was happy with the upgrades the Italian outfit introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix, which allowed Fernando Alonso to challenge for the win.
Fry, who moved to the team from McLaren in late 2010, reports that almost all of the upgrades delivered the expected benefit, but admitted that further developments were needed if they’re to continue their championship hunt.
“It was a good effort all around to get the parts delivered to Barcelona and I think most of them worked as expected,” he said on Monday.
“There were a few things we are still looking at now trying to understand if they are working to the right level, but all the bits added performance – some just a little bit less than we were expecting.
“So, all in all, everyone was reasonably happy with the updates we made. But obviously we still have a long way to go, and we have to keep working at a similar rate.”
The team will introduce further significant upgrades at the next few races, before trialling new exhaust layouts after running a conservative layout in Spain, explained Fry.
“It is going to be a constant drive for updating, like everyone does these days. We have a different rear wing and front wing package for Canada, which is a slightly different downforce level,” he continued.
“And then we are working on the exhaust system. There will be versions of that that we will test. We learned a lot at the start of the year in understanding the problems we had from that, and we had another go at Mugello.
“We have a good understanding, but the performance… we are just trying to put it on the car as quickly as we can. It will be a constant drive all the way through the season.”
