Ferrari and McLaren Stink Up The Joint in Australia
How the mighty have fallen. The last few years saw McLaren and Ferrari duke it out. Not now. Ferrari and McLaren just stink up the joint in Australia qualifying.
Wow. Pathetic. Sad. Revenge! All these words come to mind when watching preseason testing and qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. The problem? Fierce rivals Ferrari and McLaren were just stinking up the joint. There performance as horrific and portend seasons of mid to back pack running.
McLaren gets the award for worst failure on the track. One is left to wonder just when the engineers stopped drinking champagne and started working on this car. I would call it a dog, but that is an insult to dogs everywhere. The car will be spent trading positions with Force India all year and has taken the place of the old Honda cars as the laughingstock of the field. How ironic is that now that Brawn is leading the way?
Ferrari? Apparently the team was hitting the champagne in sorrow. The new Ferrari is not as pathetic as the McLaren, but it is very close. You have to realize something about the qualifying times in Australia. The Ferrari is not a top 10 team. Yes, it qualified that way, but look at the car weights. The Ferraris were running LIGHT in qualifying. If they had been running the same weight as the other cars, they’d have qualified around the..14th and 15th position! Guess where McLaren is sitting?
The real killer for Ferrari, of course, is Brawn GP. Perhaps Ross should have been give a bigger role at Ferrari after Schumacher was kicked out the door? Just a thought. You can bet Michael Schumacher was working hard to hide a smile when Brawn GP took the front row.
So, is there any hope for Ferrari or McLaren this year? Umm…no. The only chance is the FIA outlaws the diffusers for Brawn, Williams and Toyota. That seems unlikely. If the diffusers are allowed to stay, I would tip McLaren to have the best positive blips. I believe Lewis Hamilton and Raikkonen are even in talent, but we all know that Raikkonen tends to fade when things aren’t going well. Massa is a good driver, but not in Hamilton’s class. There will be rain at a few races and that is where you should look for Hamilton to make some impression. Other than that, both teams face a long season.
Lemmy