Team test driver Marc Gene has attempted to calm reports that Ferrari is already struggling in the post-Schumacher era.
Michael Schumacher has been replaced at the Italian squad by Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who many predict is not well enough equipped to fill the seven time world champion’s shoes.
Indeed, Raikkonen is seldom at the top of the time sheets at F1’s winter group tests and is often observed encountering technical problems with his ‘F2007’.
Maranello based Ferrari’s long time technical director Ross Brawn, meanwhile, is taking a ‘sabbatical’ this year, and some observers have expressed surprise at the finer details of the team’s new car for 2007.
Borrowing a word from Italian, the German tabloid Bild headlined the apparent situation at Ferrari this winter as ‘Kimi Catastrofe’, and noted that the team may have lost direction a mere 112 days after Schumacher called it quits.
Spaniard Gene, 32, told ‘Diario As’: “Even without Schumacher, Ferrari is still Ferrari and Raikkonen is a great driver.
“Some things have changed but I don’t think this will make it easier for the others,” he added, denying that the testing form of the F2007 racer is a concern.
“At this time last year we were not in as good a position as we are now,” Gene insisted, “so we are hoping to start the year level with the competition and then we have much room to improve after that.”
GMMF1
DailyF1News.com
