Ferrari Confident F2004 will Race in Australia

Formula One champions Ferrari have played down fears they are racing against time to get their new car ready for the start of the season.

Team bosses said at the launch of the F2004 on Monday that they had decided to run it from the first Grand Prix in Australia on March 7. However chief designer Rory Byrne admitted that some parts were still in the pipeline and that the car would look very different in Melbourne.

"There will be fairly substantial changes to the aerodynamic components particularly," he said.

"The things that will be obvious will be the front wing, turning vanes and the aerodynamics at the rear of the car. Those will be introduced during February, as soon as possible obviously.

"The reason they are not on there yet is fundamentally because we have pushed the development as hard as possible and we're still making the pieces," added Byrne.

Ferrari have not started a season with a new car since 2001, preferring instead to hold fire until the first European race. But this year there are new engine rules, putting a premium on reliability and having all the problems ironed out before the start of the season.

Ferrari's rivals McLaren and Williams have had their new cars out and pounding around circuits for some time now while Renault's was given its first track outing last week.

Balancing Act

Technical director Ross Brawn said the decision to abandon last year's F2003-GA and start with the new car had been taken before Christmas and all the team's efforts had been directed into it.

"Of course it would be nice to have more time available before the first race, I won't deny that, but you are balancing that against the performance of the car," said Brawn.

"In fact we've reached a target of when we intended to have the car ready," he added. "So in that respect the car is not late."

Brawn said several new components had already been tested on the old F2003-GA, probably more so this year than in the past.

"The old car has been running with the complete cooling system for the new car, a lot of transmission parts and a lot of engine parts. We could get a surprise, maybe something will happen," he added.

"But I think because of the regulation changes and also because we have the first three races in pretty hot countries, we made the decision we wanted the new car at the beginning of the season. If we have any catastrophes between now and then, we can reconsider but it will be a hell of a task to get the old car ready with the regulations. So we are pretty committed."

Brawn said the fallback was to run a Ferrari F2003-GA with a hybrid engine using bits from both new and old but that would be a last resort.

"To put enough engines of that type together in that time would be a heck of a task."