Ferrari confident on race engine

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/6072460.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Ferrari believe Michael Schumacher will not experience any trouble with his car's engine at the title-deciding Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The seven-times champion was forced to retire from the Japanese Grand Prix two weeks ago after an engine failure.

The German needs to win the race in Sao Paulo and hope Fernando Alonso fails to gain a point if he is to win his eighth world title before retiring.

"The Suzuka problem was a one-off, we hope," said technical boss Ross Brawn.

"It was a failure of the top end of a valve, where it connects to the collets around the pneumatic piston - nothing we've seen before.

"So we've been super-vigilant on the build of these engines to try and make sure we can avoid the problem occurring again.

"But we don't have a complete explanation for what happened."

Schumacher was leading the race and the championship when his engine went at Suzuka.

His exit allowed Alonso to go on and win and open a 10-point lead over Schumacher in the driver standings.

Both men have new engines for the Interlagos showdown.

While Schumacher has to go for victory, and may therefore have to rev his engine more than usual, Alonso can play safe and aim only for a solid points finish.

"Our approach is that the performance is there, we'll use it if we need to but we won't use it if we don't need to," said Renault engineering chief Pat Symonds.

Meanwhile former Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello has dismissed Schumacher's chances of beating Alonso to the world title.

"I think it's quite impossible - maybe 1% away from impossible!" said the Brazilian.