Bigger ‘shark gills’ to help cool Ferraris at Sepang

The first major evidence of Ferrari’s push to improve the cooling efficiency of its 2010 car can now be seen in the team’s pit garage at Sepang.

Boss Stefano Domenicali vowed to improve the F10 after both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa’s engines had to be changed due to heat stress after qualifying for the season opener in Bahrain.

“The temperature of the engine is the result of the aerodynamics of the car, so we have to work on that in order to make sure that we don’t have any more of these kinds of issues for the next hot races,” he said.

Although rain is forecast in Malaysia this weekend, the ambient temperatures are nonetheless certain to be high, and Ferrari confirmed that the red cars “will have some updates aimed at dealing with the unique characteristics of this event”.

The most obvious change is to the engine cover, which now features much more pronounced ‘shark gills’.

The (smaller) gills were present in Bahrain, but not at all during the cold winter testing period.

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