Italy slams Ferrari for Barcelona 'news blackout'

Media outlets in Italy have slammed Ferrari due to them keeing a blanket over themselves at winter testing, not giving anything away about their new car. Ferrari decided to adopt this strategy after creating lots of hype for 2016, before plummeting to third in the constructors championship, winless.

Although the first two days have looked quite promising for the Italian squad, Sebastian Vettel was banned from talking to the media on Monday: "Ferrari do not speak," insider Leo Turrini said. "But they are happy with the outcome of the first day of testing."

However this 'blackout' has not been met kindly with journalists in Italy, who claim that fans deserve to know what is going on:  "Low profile is acceptable," said La Gazzetta dello Sport's Luigi Perna, "but not complete silence.

"Journalists are like engineers," he told the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti. "We should be able to give feedback to the fans, who have the right to hear the drivers."

Turrini said the decision was made by president Marchionne himself, triggering a furious reaction from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

"Starting the season with a news blackout is absurd. After the sad living nativity scene of the car launch comes this meaningless news blackout. A low profile asked by Marchionne is one thing, but this carelessness is quite another."

The only comments that have been made about Ferrari's 2017 challenger has come from their rivals such as Red Bull's Adrian Newey.

He said on Monday: "The Mercedes looks very sophisticated. As for Ferrari, I do not quite understand the area of the sidepods, which look very complicated to me."

Toro Rosso technical boss James Key agrees: "The Ferrari looks really interesting -- it is not like the other cars."

And former F1 driver Marc Surer said in Barcelona: "The Ferrari makes a good impression on me. You can see they've done a good job in the winter.

"From the (engine) sound, the Ferrari is in no way inferior to Mercedes," the pundit told Bild newspaper. "Now we'll have to see if that is synonymous with performance."

Fergal Walsh