Ferrari will be focusing on making their cars go quicker in Saturday qualifying, for they believe that is their best chance of winning both the World Championships. Team boss Stefano Domenicali admitted as much after the Chinese Grand Prix.

Let us for a moment consider Ferrari’s starting positions. They started 2nd and 3rd at Bahrain, 3rd and 5th in Australia, 19th and 21st in Malaysia, and, 3rd and 7th in China. That is decent qualifying form by any standards and with more parts coming, something to build upon. The mess at Sepan notwithstanding, the only problem is that Ferrari’s main title rival Red Bull Racing has had atleast one of their cars on pole all the way so far.

Now in dry conditions, with their probably superior race pace, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa can continue to measure up to the grid and garner enough points. But the problem with not being in front is what we have seen so far in the four races. You are more or less caught up with cars that are equally or unequally fast, and hamper your chances in the first stint of the race. Those cars include the McLarens, Mercedes, Renaults and occasionally Force India/Toro Rosso.

That is the big hassle for Alonso-Massa and team at the moment. Alonso in a post Chinese GP interview claimed that a dry race would see a Ferrari winning. One is not sure about that for the one dry race we have had this year, in Bahrain, he won because Sebastien Vettel had an engine problem. Now without that problem, it doesn’t seem Vettel would have gone down without a fight. In the end we would have witnessed a battle between the two fastest cars on the grid, which is something rain has not allowed us to witness so far.

The additional problem now, after Shanghai, arising is that McLaren seem to have made a step up from the first couple of races. Now it isn’t clear how quick they are in dry conditions but in the wet they were quite speedy, especially with their F-duct working like clockwork. Ferrari are testing their own system and at Shanghai the speed trap showed McLaren at 312 km/h and Alonso at 311 km/h during Friday practice. So it seems to be working well in bits and the whole system should be in place by Barcelona, which is three weeks away. Will it measure up when it matters is something we will have to wait for.