Ferrari spent '100s of millions' to catch up
- Published on 21 Mar 2017 12:11
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- By: Rob Veenstra
Ferrari is on the cusp of a much better season in F1. That is the claim of the Italian marque's former chief engineer Toni Cuquerella, who was at Ferrari as recently as 2016 but will now be a commentator for Spanish TV. Winter testing has indicated Ferrari might even be ready to take on Mercedes in 2017, but Cuquerella told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the real picture will only begin to emerge in Melbourne.
"What is clear is that they have made a significant step in quality," he said. "Whether it is enough to compete with or beat Mercedes, I still don't know. But I do know that they will not be as far away as they were at this point last year."
Cuquerella said Ferrari's boost has been thanks to a "great investment in development". "We are talking about an injection of hundreds of millions of euros in tools that allow the testing of most parts of the car," he revealed. "Ferrari realised this is the deficit they had to Mercedes. The results of the winter were strong enough for me to think that they will do well, although I dare not quantify that improvement. They may be four tenths behind or two tenths ahead, but at the very least, Ferrari is serious now," said Cuquerella. (GMM)
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Replies (6)
Login to replytalktohenry
Posts: 362
Crazy situation and no benefit for the fans or to the racing, instead of Ferrari having a massive waste of budget spending hundreds of millions we need new teams entering the sport, like it was before where there were so many teams we had pre-qualifying. Hopefully Ross is on the case!
mcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
from the POV of Liberty media yes. From Ferrari POV? No.
mclarenfan1968
Posts: 1,027
"We've won the championship without spending much money" -- said no leading team ever.
Meanwhile in other news water is wet.
Vet5
Posts: 225
Exactly! If Williams had the kind of money Ferrari have they would be spending it to have a better car to fight for the championship.
Wolfgang
Posts: 313
good sign for kimi and seb.. Same sort of thing they did in the late 90´s leading them to lots of titles..
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
And Mercedes probably spent about the same amount to stay on top. I don't see the big deal, if Ferrari didn't feel it was worth it, they wouldn't have done it.