Ferrari to focus on KERS development

Ferrari’s engine chief Gilles Simon has revealed that the team has merged its engine and electronics departments in order to maximize its development of a kinetic energy recovery system for 2009. KERS technology can be used in Formula 1 from next year, as the sport aims to more into a more environmentally-friendly era over the next decade.

"This new organization is already looking ahead to the year 2009, when we will develop a kinetic system to reuse the energy produced by the car," he said.

“This will take up a lot of our time this year.

“To combine the two departments is an obvious thing to do.

“We will do many test sessions inside and outside of the works."

“This is already the second year that we are not allowed to further develop the engines," he said.

“What we have actually done is concentrated our work on everything that is sitting above the cylinders; such as the inlets and also on the improvement of the lubrication.

“We also developed a new kind of fuel over the last winter in collaboration with Shell.

“The rules of 2008 set a limit of 5.75% of bi-components in the fuel.

“We'll use the biofuel already at the tests in Jerez next week."