2012 Ferrari 'aggressive' - Tombazis

Nikolas Tombazis says Ferrari has been "a bit too conservative" over the past few seasons © Sutton Images

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Ferrari's chief designer Nikolas Tombazis says that the 2012 car features "a more aggressive approach" and that Stefano Domenicali thinks the car has the "wow factor".

After a promising pre-season testing Ferrari has struggled to match Red Bull and at times McLaren with the 150th Italia, especially in cooler temperatures. Having admitted defeat in the driver's and constructor's championships earlier this season, the team is now fully focussed on its 2012 car, and Tombazis says that Ferrari has been more open-minded.

"I hope the results will speak for themselves when we launch the car and more importantly, as we tackle the first few races on the calendar," Tombazis told the official Ferrari website. "A more aggressive approach has come about as the result of the analysis we carried out of the defeats we suffered over the past few years. We realised we had been a bit too conservative and had closed our minds to some strands of development. So for next year's car, we have sanctioned a much more aggressive approach on the aero front, which has required a much closer working relationship with those developing the structure of the car.

"It might make it harder when considering other aspects of the car, but it allows more room for aerodynamic development. The other element of the new approach is in how we make use of the wind tunnel: it involves not just developing and optimising what we have, but also introducing to every wind tunnel session some new concepts, which sometimes might not work, but sometimes can produce interesting results."

Tombazis also said that Domenicali had been impressed with the design of the new car, parts of which are already in production, and that he hoped it would translate in to results.

"I think that visually, the new car is fairly different to its predecessor but if it has a wow factor, as our team principal Stefano Domenicali thought, when he first saw the model, then I hope the wow factor will also be evident from the results. We have set ourselves ambitious targets, which we intend to maintain and so, on this front, I am quite optimistic."

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