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Tuesday 13 March 2012

Dour preseason frustrates Ferrari's F1 title hopes


And will likely leave a frustrated Fernando Alonso in Red Bull s rearview mirror again. Ferrari s new design lacked competitive edge in testing and appears to have fallen behind McLaren and Lotus in the chase to dethrone Red Bull and two-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel. Pat Fry already said Ferrari has no shot at the podium in the season opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday as the team struggles to stabilize an already radically redesigned car. "I saw in (team principal Stefano) Domenicali and our engineers a great desire to show what they re worth and to react to a winter program that didn t live up to our targets," Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said. "We will only discover the truth about where we stand compared to the others after Saturday s qualifying session in Melbourne. Today we can only make assumptions." Fry replaced technical director Aldo Costa last season with the Italian team struggling and the decision to take risks on this year s design has left Ferrari looking vulnerable due to its inability to completely understand its car in testing. "The new car has certain characteristics that are difficult to understand and you could say we are not exactly where we want to be," said two-time world champion Alonso, the Spanish driver going into his third season with the team. "But we ve all lived through many Formula One seasons and we all know very well that until we re in Australia we don t really know where we stand regarding to the others." Since Kimi Raikkonen edged Alonso and then McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton for the 2007 title in the season s final race, the Italians have struggled to compete with McLaren and Red Bull, who have swept to three of the four titles since. Alonso, meanwhile, has twice lost championships in season finales, the last to Vettel during his debut season with Ferrari. Alonso won at Silverstone last year but Ferrari never mounted a serious challenge to Vettel, who won 11 of 19 races to become the youngest driver to win back-to-back titles breaking Alonso s record earned with Renault in 2005 and  06.

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