Ferrari looking at Formula 1 rivals' car designs more in 2017

TIN news:  Ferrari is more open to learning from its Formula 1 rivals' car designs in 2017, says team principal Maurizio Arrivabene.

The F1 teams have all brought upgrades for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, with the huge package Mercedes has added for Barcelona attracting particular attention.

Arrivabene said Ferrari was taking much more note of what both Mercedes and Red Bull were doing than it had in previous seasons.

"The lesson that we learned last year was to look at all our competitors," Arrivabene said.

"Of course visually the Mercedes is very impressive, because yesterday we were looking at the Mercedes.

"But we were looking also at the Red Bull.

"We have two schools, one is the one of Mercedes, which is quite interesting, creative and surprising, the other one is the Red Bull school, where maybe something is not really evident, but is extremely efficient.

"We need to take into consideration what they do to be able to compete with them and continue our development.

"One of the mantras of this year is we are looking, and if there is something interesting we will investigate it.

"But we follow our way, we have own programme, and we want to continue to follow our programme."

Mercedes was first and second in both Barcelona Friday sessions, with Ferrari a second off in the morning and closing to within half a second later on.

Arrivabene shrugged off suggestions that this meant Mercedes had pulled away from Ferrari with its upgrade.

"I was asked the same question on Friday in Australia when the gap in FP1 was the same between us and Mercedes," he said.

"And on that occasion I answered the question as I answer today: 'Chapeau' to Mercedes for what they have done, but we are not going to change our programme, the programme for this weekend starting from Friday, improving Saturday, and looking also for Sunday.

"This is what we want to do and what we are focused to do.

"As I've said many, many times they are world champions, they have to defend the title of course.

"They are stronger, they are the reference for all of us, and we just have to try to create them some problems."