| After 21 test days with the Sauber Petronas C23 the Swiss based squad s ready to compete with its rivals at the season's opening race, the Grand Prix of Australia in Melbourne, next Sunday, 7th of March.
The C23 performed well at their recent Imola test and they plan to run the car in Australia in the same configuration as they did for the test at the Italian track, believing that it will give them a good baseline for first practice on Friday.
The team have also completed a lot of test kilometres, so therefore they head to Albert park with a level of confidence that the C23 is reliable with no unsolved problems. However, they know full well that it's going to be a hard race, and above all it will be important to finish.
For Giancarlo Fisichella, the season opener will also mark his debut with the team after leaving Jordan at the end of the 2003 season. The Italian driver is happy with the new car and eager to get going….
"I like Australia and I like the city of Melbourne. It's always a nice Grand Prix weekend there, especially as it is the season opener. Some of the parts of the track are quite challenging, and it's one of those races where, if you can finish, you can usually take some points. You need a really reliable car there,” he said. ‘I have a good feeling with the Sauber Petronas C23, especially after our latest tests in Spain and Italy where we did a very good job on set-up and tyre development with Bridgestone. We did a very good time at Imola, using the latest Bridgestones. So I'm feeling optimistic that we can qualify in the first five rows and hopefully score some points straight away."
For Felipe Massa, Giancarlo’s teammate for the next 18 events, the Australian Grand Prix marks his return to active competition, once again with Sauber, with whom he made his Formula One debut with here in 2002.
"I'm so happy to be racing again, especially in Melbourne where I made my Grand Prix debut in 2002. There are some new rules since I was last here, notably single-lap qualifying, but that will be okay. I have done some simulation work on that during our tests, and it has gone well for me,” Felipe said. “Melbourne is a good track and I qualified well there in 2002. I believe that the Sauber Petronas C23 has a lot of potential. Of course it's always hard to know just where you are after all the winter testing, and Melbourne will give us our first true indication of our position overall and then we will really know where we are. But we have a good car and the latest Bridgestone tyres, which incorporated the new construction and compound, were good at our Imola test. Bridgestone has been working really hard, and it showed there. I'm encouraged by that, and am looking forward to scoring some points in Australia."
The most significant regulation change for 2004, is the single-engine rule, a rule that will make everyone quite conservative when running on Friday in order to keep the engine at its best for Saturday's qualifying and the race. Sauber will still have to do their tyre comparison and selection then, however, as this must now be decided before the first session of practice on Saturday morning.
The new qualifying rules - two sessions on Saturday afternoon - also mean that nobody has any reason to do low-fuel running any more, so everyone will concentrate on race preparation work instead. The first session will really just be a warm-up, with nobody wanting to risk their cars, and the second session, which will form the grid, will obviously be the primary focus.
"The rule change limiting the upper rear wing to only two elements instead of three has resulted in a reduction in downforce, and this in turn means that most circuits now will require maximum downforce,” said Willy Rampf, the team’s technical director. “Melbourne's Albert Park is one of these. It is also very hard on brakes, so you aim for brake stability as a priority. The track is also quite dirty first thing on the Friday, and it takes several laps for the grip level to improve.”
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