Ferrari: no plans to replace wind tunnel

The Maranello-based tunnel - one of the oldest in Formula One - was brought to a standstill by a fault in the rolling road two months ago. And with no second facility to fall back on, the team had to stop work until the problem was rectified.

Despite the setback, the head of the team's chassis department Aldo Costa said that the team were happy with their tunnel and had no plans to expand to another unit.

"We know that our facility is not the largest, and is not the most recent one. And we don't have two wind tunnels, which some other teams have got," he said.

"We still think it is a good programme to have one wind tunnel, and to run it for 24 hours, and to try to get the best out of that wind tunnel. So our policy is to continue with this wind tunnel."

While admitting that the failure had been a blow to the team's development programme, team principal Jean Todt was in no hurry to use it as justification for Ferrari's recent performance shortfall compared with McLaren.

"It's not an excuse," Todt said. "It's up to us to have a wind tunnel that doesn't break."

Ferrari claim the age of their wind tunnel was not a factor in its malfunction

Costa added: "In terms of the failure, I have to say that we analysed the structure of the wind tunnel to see whether the problem was due to the fact that it was an older one, and I can tell you that that was not the case," he said.

"The belt gets changed every few months, the rollers on the belt get changed every few months, so it was not due to the fact that the wind tunnel is old."