F1: Ferrari Working To Fix Wind Tunnel Problem

Formula 1

F1: Ferrari Working To Fix Wind Tunnel Problem

The Ferrari team is without a podium finish in three races this season...

SPEED Staff / GMM | Posted April 19, 2011 GMM Newswire

Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo says the team must improve. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Ferrari is working to fix a problem with its Maranello wind tunnel that has thwarted development of the 2011 car.

President Luca di Montezemolo's public message after Shanghai is that the famous marque "cannot and must not" keep turning out the same performances this season.

A deeper analysis is that the 150 Italia is lagging aerodynamically due a problem with the calibration of Ferrari's wind tunnel.

"We have a structural problem with the tunnel," team boss Stefano Domenicali confirmed to Italy's Autosprint. "We are working to fix it."

He revealed that the tunnel has been churning out data that conflicts with the values seen when the car is running on a real circuit.

Recalibration of a wind tunnel is not the task of a moment, and therefore it is rumored that Ferrari is set to rely more heavily in the near future on the superb facility at Cologne which is now leased to clients by Toyota Motorsport.

"We started an investigation so we are doing correlation between the track and the wind tunnel, trying to understand why that (problem) should be," confirmed technical director Aldo Costa.