Ferrari technical director James Allison expects the Italian outfit will be able to narrow the gap to Mercedes at the Malaysian Grand Prix this weekend.
Ferrari have emerged as Mercedes’ closest rival, with Sebastian Vettel finishing third at the season opener in Melbourne. However the German was some 30 seconds down the road come the chequered flag.
Allison is expecting him and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to be closer this weekend though, provided they can get everything right.
“Let’s assume Mercedes don’t make a mistake, with the gaps we saw in Melbourne we expect them at the front,” Allison explained.
“But we think we can be a fair bit closer to them if we get everything right – we didn’t get everything right in Melbourne and in Malaysia we hope to, so I hope we can put our car in a strong third and fourth on the grid.”
Allison is however wary of the Malaysian weather throwing a surprise result, even though the circuit itself is close to Melbourne in terms of the challenge it presents.
“Sepang is obviously totally different climate but the track is not so different, we look at tracks normally in two main ways: how sensitive they are to horsepower and how sensitive they are to downforce,” he added.
“If you look at Sepang compared with Melbourne in those ways then Sepang is very similar, so a car that was at a certain level of competitiveness in Melbourne should really inherit that at Sepang.
“The difference is Sepang is very hot and is therefore a challenge to keep the car at the right temperature and also the tyres at the right temperature, so that is a bigger deal than it was in Melbourne.”
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