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Briatore Tells Ferrari to Give Up on 2011 F1 Campaign

Only one race in the 2011 Formula One season has passed and certain high-ranked figures connected to the Great Circus in the past have already started giving verdicts for the year. Flavio Briatore, the former manager of Benetton and Renault F1 Team, is one of them.

And not only Briatore thinks Red Bull Racing, as showed by their dominant performance in the Australian Grand Prix, will be uncatchable this season, but he also advised the Austrian squad's rivals – especially countrymen Ferrari, whom he has a special affinity for – to already start focusing on the 2012 campaign.

It may sound absurd, but I think Ferrari should focus on the 2012 car now,” Briatore is quoted as saying to Finland's Turun Sanomat. “Ferrari, of course, have all the engineering skills and resources that you need, but the half-second difference to Red Bull is an eternity.”

Talking to Italy's La Politica following the race Down Under, Briatore had insisted that the time gap between Red Bull and its rivals cannot be recuperated in 2 months. And, “if Red Bull maintain their condition and he (Vettel) keeps the same lead on Mark Webber,” the reigning world champion will be out of reach for the rest of the season, he further argued.

Curiously enough, Briatore is not the only one who thinks that way about the 2011 campaign. According to Gerhard Berger, retired Grand Prix driver and former partner of Red Bull's Dietrich Mateschitz back when he co-owned Scuderia Toro Rosso, there is no reason to believe the Austrian team will be caught by its rivals in 2011.

Why should there be a big change?” he told the Bild newspaper. “All the same people will all keep working, so I don't foresee a turning point.”

So we guess there will be at least two people who won't be watching F1 very closely this year...
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