RAIKKONEN/MASSA Confident Of Ferrari's Reliability (Spoiler-Post Race Interviews)

(from autosport)

MASSA' QUOTE:


Felipe Massa is confident that Ferrari have nothing to fear about the high temperatures that will greet them in Sepang this weekend, despite the double engine failure in Australia.

The Brazilian and teammate Kimi Raikkonen endured a troubled weekend in Melbourne, and both retired from the race with engine failures - which some suggested could have been caused by the higher than usual temperatures.

But Massa is optimistic that there will be no repeat of the dramas this weekend, and that Ferrari can kick-start their campaign in Malaysia.

"We will put new engines in the car and for sure we can go to the end of two races now," he said. "It wasn't the temperature that affected our engines, it was something else which we need to discover very quickly.

"We need to start a new championship from Malaysia. The championship is long, we know points are very important but we know also that many things can happen in every race."

Ferrari were set to fly the Australian power units back to their Maranello base for a series of evaluations to work out exactly what went wrong, in a bid to find solutions for Malaysia.

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RAIKKONEN'S QUOTE:


Kimi Raikkonen is convinced his Ferrari team will be able to solve the reliability problems that hindered their Australian Grand Prix weekend.

The world champion was hit by trouble in qualifying, meaning he had to start from 15th place, and then retired from the race with an engine problem.

Raikkonen still managed to score a point for eighth place, but that was the only positive the Italian squad could extract from a disappointing weekend.

And although Raikkonen admits the reliability issues are a concern, he is sure Ferrari will work hard to solve them.

"The lack of reliability is a real problem for me now," the Finn said. "But I know that back in Maranello the team is working hard to solve our problems.

"I'm not worried at all about the performance and the competitiveness of the car. The first race was like it was, but we know that we have a really good car.

"We have to be constantly competitive during the weekend, because when you have to start from far behind, you get stuck in the traffic, just the way it happened at Melbourne.

"We had a good start, but it is difficult to overtake; you need to take some risks, especially when you have slower cars in front of you."

Raikkonen, who last year won the title by one point, welcomed the result after such a poor weekend, as he reckons that point could be crucial in the end.

"There's really not much to say about the first race weekend of the season: The only positive thing is, that it's all behind us," said Raikkonen.

"We had problems right from Saturday morning and we could not operate according to our plans. Obviously we are really disappointed.

"There's no point in knowing what we could have done on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, because in the end we would not have finished the race. We don't cry over spilled milk.

"It doesn't help anyway and would not change the result. Although, with all the problems we had, we still managed to get one point.

"So in the end one can always find a positive aspect in this Australian weekend. We'll see how important that single point will be by the end of the season."

 

What do you think happened to the engines?

...I´ve been watching this races for long enough to be "convinced" those fuel pumps just stopped and left the cars kinda idddling for a few moments and then dying...and after the first pump failed on Kimmis car then -even after checking and reinstaling new ones- they failed eventually...

We had those issues last year with alternators going bad on both cars, and rear Shocks blew with one race interval on both cars...our reliability issues run deep down IMHO...and it is our BIGGEST PROBLEM BY FAR.

...but you´ve been listening to this engines WAY more than I, so I wanted to know your thoughts on those failures...Since Ferrari will never say the truth on this...even worst if every single engine stalled due to bad gas pumps.

 

It is my understanding these are basically the same engines as used last year with negligible reliability issues.
Am I wrong ?

 

Raikkonen´s car made a really strange sound. I don´t think that problem was related to fuel pumps. Altought it would be great, as it would be easier to solve.

 

...but they didnt blew...I mean smoke and tears.

...F1 engines are so on the limit, when something goes wrong they just blow...and I felt the engines running uneven, and kinda at mid gas...like idling for a few moments before shutting down...like when you run out of gas, which will be consistant with the reported fuel pump that went bad while Kimmi was qualifying...

...Massa´s car just started to loose revs...like Iddling, and then stopped...he kept clicking the paddles to see if the car will restart while it still had some inertia but nothing happended...

...if those failures were GEARBOX related will cost us 5 positions, and if they are ENGINE related, will cost 10 positions...if they were fuel delivery...well, we are free to change them for Malasya with no penalty...am I right?

...really, truly, deeply...while we DONT FIND the reason for the failure, we are just as broken as sunday.

 

...that´s what I mean, how could every engine fail?...is, just weird, these things got prepped so long ago, and HAD to be perfect in every detail...I mean, one can fail and is still dumb but BOTH?

 

sounded like he has an exhaust failure or somethin..

 

yep, the engines seemed to have two different failures ..

the "good news" is that there is not penalty for the first engine change this year.

 

Consider that when Domenicali realized that neither driver could improve their position with the limited laps remaining, and that Rubens would likely be disqualified, that the cars were just pulled over to save the engines?

 

I don't really think so,

.When Massa stopped there was plenty of time left, and he surely could have take some points,
.if Kimi didn't had the engine failure he would have finished 4th..

i guess it's better than just 1 point..

 

Why would they be pulled over to save the engine if they were going to have to replace the engine anyways?