Engine change a worry for Ferrari

MOTOR SPORT/Chinese Grand Prix: Ferrari's preparations for the Chinese Grand Prix started on an ominous note yesterday when Michael Schumacher's team-mate Felipe Massa was forced to undergo an engine change after technicians detected a problem in the normally very reliable V8 power unit.

This means the Brazilian will incur a 10-place penalty when the starting grid line-up is decided today, which in turn may well rob Schumacher of important strategic assistance from his talented colleague in tomorrow's contest with Fernando Alonso and Renault.

Furthermore, Ferrari will now have nagging doubts about Schumacher's reliability on a circuit where the German has still yet to score a world championship point. In 2004 he finished 12th and last year spun off while running behind the safety car.

There is no obvious reason to expect any problems with Schumacher's engine, but it is always unsettling when a team-mate suffers a technical problem. Expect the Ferrari engineers to be scanning the computer telemetry extra closely, while straining their ears for worrying noises.

"There is little to say as this was not a good day for me," Massa said bluntly. "I did not go out on the track this morning and then in my second run this afternoon, I had a problem with the engine and had to come back into the pits, where the engineers realised the unit would have to be changed.

"It is bad luck to have to change the engine, but at least at this track it is possible to pass. You can play a bit with strategies here as well, so I think we will be able to do a good race and maybe a top-five finish is possible."

If Schumacher was worried, he did not look it - even when light rain doused the circuit during the second session, as if to signal broken weather on race day.

"Compared to last year we are much more competitive and we hope to repay the fans with a better result than back then," Schumacher said. "The fight with our closest rivals seems to be very tight, even if we have not had time to take a close look at the data. But it is difficult to make predictions on tyre performance given today's weather."

As for Alonso, the reigning world champion took an understandably cautious approach to the two free-practice sessions, completing only 10 laps in total despite a quick spin in the wet.

"The car felt comfortable to drive straight away," he declared. "So while we need to fine-tune things overnight, I am quite happy at the moment. I think we need to be quite cautious analysing the times because today's conditions are different from what we expect for the race."

Renault's managing director Flavio Briatore predicted there would be no downturn in formula one's popularity when Schumacher retires shortly: "Whatever actor you have in this movie, sooner or later the actor stops - but the movie goes on. I think Ayrton Senna is the classic example. At the time when what unfortunately happened to Senna, I remember every magazine and every newspaper said 'formula one is finished'. But we are still here."

Guardian Service