"The influence on car performance has been greatly over-emphasised," chief designer Nikolas Tombazis stressed, "You cannot measure the effect of one component in isolation, and the nose is just one part of a bigger package. In fact, its effect is not that big. Overall, we expect the new aero package to produce some improvement in performance, but it would be wrong to call it a race winning item."
The nose, however, remains of interest for purely technical reasons, with Tombazis confirming that the piece had caused a few headaches during its gestation.
"The main challenge was its design and manufacture," he revealed, "We effectively had a part which, by virtue of the slot, has less carbon fibre, less material and yet still had to conform to all the usual
FIA crash tests - which it passed successfully. This was a big challenge for the people involved in producing it."
Luca Badoer will shakedown the two F2008s destined for Barcelona at Fiorano today [Wednesday], before the Scuderia packs up and heads across the south of France in pursuit of a third straight victory.
"We come to Spain with every reason to be optimistic, after wins in Malaysia and Bahrain," says team director Stefano Domenicali, "Testing here went well and we hope to keep our momentum moving forward.
"However, our rivals have not been twiddling their thumbs either, so we can expect a tough fight which we will tackle as usual with maximum concentration at every stage of the weekend."
