Motor Sport: Ferrari's early-season woes continued in Bahrain yesterday as Rubens Barrichello's new F2005 car, making its debut in the desert after two disastrous grands prix in last year's car, suffered gearbox problems that will only be solved in the run-up to today's crucial low-fuel qualifying session in the Gulf state.
Ferrari's belief they could comfortably start this season's defence of Michael Schumacher's seventh title with the car in which he won that title has been proven wildly inaccurate as Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso streaked to wins in Australia and Malaysia respectively, while Schumacher and Barrichello limped through the races in midfield, in the gravel traps or at best, in Barrichello's case, to a hard-fought podium in third place in Australia.
The response was to advance the introduction of the F2005, from a planned date at the Spanish Grand Prix in May, to here, the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, a small bolthole of speed, sweltering in the depths of the desert.
And yesterday, the wheel came off Ferrari's brave new 2005 plans as a bearing problem in the gearbox of Barrichello's Ferrari, the damage proving so bad he could not take to the track in the afternoon session.
In Malaysia, Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn had enthused about the potential of the new car to claw back the ground lost in the first two events of the season and was bullish about it being a full second faster than the 2004 car.
Yet rumours abounded on the same weekend of Ferrari insiders whispering that Brawn's confidence was overconfidence and problems were being encountered. And here comes the first evidence and the solution is not so easy.
Ferrari now admit they will be forced to wait until this afternoon for a replacement gearbox and will have to cope with a carefully repaired unit until then.
Despite the setback, Barrichello remains hopeful the new car will push the Scuderia back to the front of the grid and into competition with Renault.
Barrichello, though, has dismissed suggestions this could be the end of the current era of domination for the Scuderia.
"We are a strong group of people who concentrate on our problems and I don't think this is the end of the current Ferrari era," he maintained.
"In fact, with the current situation, I'm enjoying the challenge and looking forward to seeing how we progress with the new car. We now need to push on with our test programme and try and win another championship. Last year we were very quick here in Bahrain; now we will see what happens this year."
And before yesterday's practice the Brazilian enthused about the potential of the car.
"I have only had about seven hours to get to know the car during one day's testing at Mugello. I felt the car is better, with stupendous balance in the fast corners. From my very first lap out of the pits I knew the F2005 was a quicker car. It gave me a good feeling and now we have to see how much quicker it goes."
Quicker it may be but its reliability is now in question, while the Renaults still looked comfortably quick yesterday.
McLaren test driver Alexander Wurz, taking over from Pedroi de la Rosa, who in turn is replacing Juan Pablo Montoya in the race - the Colombian injured his shoulder, apparently playing tennis last week - was fastest yesterday but Alonso and team-mate Fisichella looked equally comfortable.
Spaniard Alonso was second fastest, just over a second behind Wurz, and the world championship leader is quietly confident about his chances tomorrow.
"I have no worries after the opening day; the car balance was pretty good and we seemed quite quick," said Alonso. "However, we must be cautious with our choices here. We have only raced at this track once, and the conditions on Friday are very different to those we will meet in the grand prix.
"The circuit today was still quite low grip, but it should improve through the rest of the weekend."
Fisichella, was also optimistic despite only recording the seventh-fastest time of the session.
"My day went quite well. There is still work to do on the balance, because the car had some oversteer during the sessions today, but the other aspects of the handling seem to be working well," the Italian added.
"It was hot out there on track, but now we have come through Malaysia, I don't think the conditions will be a problem for the drivers in the race."
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)