Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro News

Alonso’s first day in Maranello

Maranello, 6 November 2009 – Today early in the morning, just after 8am. Fernando Alonso arrived at the gates of the Scuderia Ferrari for his first contact with the new team, although still not as an official member due to his contractual commitments regarding image management, which still tie him to his previous team and his sponsors.

The first meeting was with Stefano Domenicali, who then left him to the technicians, who started to work with the driver on the upcoming season’s programme. Between meetings connected to the new single-seater’s project Fernando visited the wind channel to see the model and worked on the sitting position in the car’s cockpit, while the day ended just after 5pm. Before leaving Maranello, Alonso was received by Chairman Luca di Montezemolo, who personally wanted to welcome the Spaniard at Ferrari in a cordially meeting of around half an hour.

Today’s intermezzo was a couple of laps on the Fiorano race track with the 458 Italia, naturally in red: as he couldn’t yet drive a red Formula 1 car Fernando wanted to feel the emotion of driving a Ferrari on the track where all the Prancing Horse’s single-seaters are born and raised.

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Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro News

We want a different closing chapter

Maranello, 4 November 2009 - It seems like a parody of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians", published in England for the first time in the year 1939, but reality is much more serious. Formula 1 continues loosing important parts: over the last 12 months Honda, BMW, Bridgestone and this morning Toyota announced their retirements. In exchange, if one could call it that, Manor, Lotus (because of the team of Colin Chapman, Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna, to name a few, there is hardly more than the name), USF1 and Campos Meta arrived. You might say "same-same", because it is enough if there are participants. But that's not entirely true and then we've got to see if next year we'll be really as many in Bahrain for the first starting grid of the 2010 season and how many will make it to the end of the season.

In reality the steady trickle of desertion is more the result of a war against the big car manufacturers by those who managed the sport, than the effects of the economical that affected Formula 1 over the last years. In Christie's detective novel the guilty person is only discovered when everybody else is dead, one after the other. Do we want to wait until this happens or should we write Formula 1's book with a different closing chapter? _____________________________________________________

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro News

Report - Tough season tough finale

Yas Marina, 1st November 2009 - Kimi Raikkonen and Giancarlo Fisichella finished the final race of the 2009 season in twelfth and sixteenth places respectively, at the end of a very difficult weekend, when Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro never had a really competitive car for its drivers. A shame, on what was not only the last race of the year, but also the last appearance of both the Finn and the Italian in the cockpit of a Prancing Horse F1 car.

The final round of the 2009 World Championship got underway around 45 minutes before sunset, as Abu Dhabi staged the first ever day-to-night race under floodlights, at this amazing new facility of Yas Marina. Kimi was in eleventh place on the grid and Giancarlo in twentieth.

Hamilton led from pole, followed by Vettel and Webber. Kubica passed Trulli for sixth and Button passed Barrichello for fourth. Kimi had dropped a place to twelfth, passed by Kobayashi while Fisichella on the other hand moved up to sixteenth. In the early stages, Hamilton could never quite shake off Vettel, while Webber had dropped to around 4 seconds, with the rest of the top ten being Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Trulli, Heidfeld, Rosberg and Buemi.

For the two-stoppers, the pit stops began on lap 17 with Barrichello and Kubica, followed by the leader and Button next time round, the Englishman losing a place to Kobayashi. Webber, Trulli, Rosberg and Buemi pitted on lap 19, with Vettel coming in on lap 20 and getting out ahead of Hamilton, who retired one lap later with brake problems. On lap 21, Kimi was now sixth and he stayed there until he made his only stop on lap 29, which dropped him back down the order. Giancarlo pitted one lap earlier but unfortunately had to come down pit lane again, having been given a drive through penalty. Any chance Kimi had of getting to a points position had pretty much ended when the two Brawns came out of ahead of him after they had refuelled. So the season ended with a fourth place in the Constructors’ championship, just a single point behind the third placed team. There was not much overtaking, so positions remained virtually unchanged throughout the order, resettling to their original places after most of the pit stops, in a race split between those refuelling once, which included Kimi and Giancarlo and those pitting twice, who inevitably were the faster runners.

At the chequered flag, Vettel secured his fourth win of the season, with Mark Webber making it a one two for Red Bull, although some excitement in the closing laps came from a hard charging Jenson Button, the new world champion doing all he could, but failing to get past the Australian. With Rubens Barrichello finishing fourth, the two teams and four drivers who had dominated the season filled the top four placings. The rest of the points went to Nick Heidfeld in BMW’s final race, followed by Kamui Kobayashi, having a strong drive in the Toyota in only his second Grand Prix, with Jarno Trulli seventh for Toyota and Sebastien Buemi eighth for Toro Rosso. The new season is only four and a half months away and all the Scuderia’s efforts are now focussed on the design and build of the successor to the F60, which did it’s best, but a best that was not good enough to challenge for titles and victories.

2009 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX

RACE DAY

November 1st 2009

1. Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:34:03.414

2. Mark Webber RBR-Renault +17.8 secs

3. Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes +18.4 secs

4. Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes +22.7 secs

5. Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber +26.2 secs

6. Kamui Kobayashi Toyota +28.3 secs

7. Jarno Trulli Toyota +34.3 secs

8. Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari +41.2 secs

9. Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota +45.9 secs

10. Robert Kubica BMW Sauber +48.1 secs

11. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes +52.7 secs

12. Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +54.3 secs

13. Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota +59.8 secs

14. Fernando Alonso Renault +69.6 secs

15. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes +94.4 secs

16. Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari +1 Lap

17. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes +1 Lap

18. Romain Grosjean Renault +1 Lap

Ret. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (Brakes)

Ret. Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari (Gearbox) _____________________________________________________

2009 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX

QUALIFYING DAY

October 31st 2009

1. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes Q3 1:40.948

2. Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault Q3 1:41.615

3. Mark Webber RBR-Renault Q3 1:41.726

4. Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes Q3 1:41.786

5. Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes Q3 1:41.892

6. Jarno Trulli Toyota Q3 1:41.897

7. Robert Kubica BMW Sauber Q3 1:41.992

8. Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber Q3 1:42.343

9. Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota Q3 1:42.583

10. Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari Q3 1:42.713

11. Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari Q2 1:40.726

12. Kamui Kobayashi Toyota Q2 1:40.777

13. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes Q2 1:40.983

14. Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota Q2 1:41.148

15. Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari Q3 1:41.689

16. Fernando Alonso Renault Q1 1:41.667

17. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes Q1 1:41.701

18. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes Q1 1:41.863

19. Romain Grosjean Renault Q1 1:41.950

20. Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari Q1 1:42.184 _____________________________________________________

2009 FIA Formula 1 World Championship Drivers

1. Jenson Button (British) Brawn-Mercedes Pts 95

2. Sebastian Vettel (German) RBR-Renault Pts 84

3. Rubens Barrichello (Brazilian) Brawn-Mercedes Pts 77

4. Mark Webber (Australian) RBR-Renault Pts 69.5

5. Lewis Hamilton (British) McLaren-Mercedes Pts 49

6. Kimi Räikkönen (Finnish) Ferrari Pts 48

7. Nico Rosberg (German) Williams-Toyota Pts 34.5

8. Jarno Trulli (Italian) Toyota Pts 32.5

9. Fernando Alonso (Spanish) Renault Pts 26

10. Timo Glock (German) Toyota Pts 24

11. Felipe Massa (Brazilian) Ferrari Pts 22

12. Heikki Kovalainen (Finnish) McLaren-Mercedes Pts 22

13. Nick Heidfeld (German) BMW Sauber Pts 19

14. Robert Kubica (Polish) BMW Sauber Pts 17

15. Giancarlo Fisichella (Italian) Ferrari Pts 8

16. Sebastien Buemi (Swiss) STR-Ferrari Pts 6

17. Adrian Sutil (German) Force India-Mercedes Pts 5

18. Kamui Kobayashi (Japanese) Toyota Pts 3

19. Sebastien Bourdais (French) STR-Ferrari Pts 2

20. Kazuki Nakajima (Japanese) Williams-Toyota Pts 0

21. Nelsinho Piquet (Brazilian) Renault Pts 0

22. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italian) Force India-Mercedes Pts 0

23. Romain Grosjean (French) Renault Pts 0

24. Jaime Alguersuari (Spanish) STR-Ferrari Pts 0

25. Luca Badoer (Italian) Ferrari Pts 0 _____________________________________________________

2009 FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors

1. Brawn-Mercedes Pts 172

2. RBR-Renault Pts 153.5

3. McLaren-Mercedes Pts 71

4. Ferrari Pts 70

5. Toyota Pts 59.5

6. BMW Sauber Pts 36

7. Williams-Toyota Pts 34.5

8. Renault Pts 26

9. Force India-Mercedes Pts 13

10. STR-Ferrari Pts 8 _____________________________________________________

2010 FIA Formula One World Championship Race Calendar

1. 2010 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix (Sakhir) * 12 - 14 Mar

2. 2010 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne) * 25 - 28 Mar

3. 2010 Formula 1 Malaysian Grand Prix (Kuala Lumpur) * 02 - 04 Apr

4. 2010 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix (Shanghai) * 16 - 18 Apr

5. Formula 1 Gran Premio de Espana 2010 (Catalunya) * 07 - 09 May

6. Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2010 (Monte Carlo) * 13 - 16 May

7. 2010 Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix (Istanbul) * 28 - 30 May

8. Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada 2010 (Montreal) * 11 - 13 Jun

9. 2010 Formula 1 Grand Prix of Europe (Valencia) * 25 - 27 Jun

10. 2010 Formula 1 British Grand Prix (Donington Park) * 09 - 11 Jul

11. Formula 1 Grosser Preis von Deutschland 2010 (Hockenheim) * 23 - 25 Jul

12. Formula 1 ING Magyar Nagydij 2010 (Budapest) * 30 Jul - 01 Aug

13. 2010 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps) * 27 - 29 Aug

14. Formula 1 Gran Premio d'Italia 2010 (Monza) * 10 - 12 Sep

15. 2010 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix (Singapore) * 24 - 26 Sep

16. 2010 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix (Suzuka) * 01 - 03 Oct

17. 2010 Formula 1 Korean Grand Prix (Korea) * 15 - 17 Oct

18. 2010 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Yas Marina Circuit) * 29 - 31 Oct

19. Formula 1 Grande Premio do Brasil 2010 (Sao Paulo) * 12 - 14 Nov

* Provisional