Friday March 29th, 2002

By Alan Baldwin

Ferrari's decision to bring both their old and new Formula One cars to Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix sounds simple enough.

World Champion Michael Schumacher gets the chance to drive the apparently faster new F2002 for the first time in a race, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello the tried, tested but still last season's F2001.

Unless of course Schumacher decides to go with the spare, in which case he will revert to an F2001 because there is no other new car to fall back on. The situation is clearly not ideal, as Schumacher himself said when he told reporters this week that "obviously we would be much more happy to have three new cars here but that has not been possible."

That may sound strange for a team of Ferrari's organisational prowess, given that they are World Champions who proudly unveiled the new car to the world at Maranello some while back. The team say reliability has been the problem and, although specifics are in short supply, sources say the new gearbox has proved fragile.

Had Williams not pulled off a one-two finish in Malaysia, Ferrari would probably have waited until their home race at Imola next month to give the F2002 its full race debut with the factory close at hand.

Top Team

As it is, Ferrari say that running two different cars together, while being something that has not been done in a Formula One race for years, poses no great organisational difficulties.

The team has tested both together this season already, something that Jaguar also did recently in determining whether to continue with the R2 or troublesome and underperforming new R3. Others have also done it in the distant past.

"I think we have done it before, quite some time ago, but we have done it before," commented Williams technical director Patrick Head. "Ferrari are a very competent team and I am sure they will be able to do it."

But in practice the situation is a complex one, since the cars are clearly very different. Reports in Italian newspapers have said even the precision tools used are not the same.

One disparity was highlighted by Head on Friday when he expressed concern in a news conference about Ferrari's wheel rims and Schumacher's tyre allocation for qualifying.

"I understand they have got a problem in that the wheels of one car do not fit the wheels of the other," he said.

Sources at Bridgestone confirmed that was the case but the tyres remained standard and the difference presents little more than a minor inconvenience in having to refit tyres to new rims.

Ferrari have also brought some 75 staff to Interlagos, a number believed to be a record for the team, as well as four cars in total and spares for both versions. There is also inevitably likely to be less data sharing between the two drivers.

"We still look at each other's data to help each other," said Barrichello. "But it's a different car in terms of set-up. At the end of the day it's the same level of information, you just gather everything in and work it out.

"There are some more people inside Ferrari just to help the fact that we have a different car but for me it's more crowded just because it's my home race."

Published at 22:05:29 GMT