Planet-F1

Trulli: The title already belongs to Ferrari

Thursday 14th February 2008

Having watched Ferrari during the pre-season tests, Jarno Trulli reckons the Italian stable already has this year's World titles in the bag.

Ferrari's F2008 has impressed during the pre-season tests, often proving to be the fastest car in the field and with one of the better reliability records.

During the recent tests at Bahrain, where Ferrari and Toyota were in action for six days, the F2008 dominated the timesheets as Toyota's TF108 failed to even once be the quicker of the two cars.

In fact on most days the TF108 was over a second off the pace of Ferrari's 2008 challenger.

And it's those impressive Bahrain performances that have led Trulli to predict that Ferrari will once again make a clean sweep of the World titles this season.

"In my opinion they are at least half a second faster per lap, even with respect to McLarens," he told Autosprint magazine. "The Championship already looks over to me before it has started."

The 33-year-old believes a large part of Ferrari's superiority is based on how the Italian stable has been able to adjust to the new ban on traction control.

"When you watch Ferrari's performance on the track your arms drop. They brake where they want but, above all, they accelerate where they want, when I always have to be careful giving power, which is no longer managed by traction control," he said.

"It's true that aerodynamic efficiency is even more crucial in Bahrain than at Jerez or Valencia because of the numerous fast bends. The asphalt gives better grip but Ferrari's superiority is disconcerting."