Thursday 29 January at 08:29 : Jan.29 (GMM) Ferrari, albeit a fierce critic of the new energy re-use technology, worked on an innovative solution for its 2009 KERS system

The Swiss publication Motorsport Aktuell reports that, parallel to a more conventional in-house project, engineers at Maranello devised a system whereby the KERS batteries were located in the front nose of the F60 single seater

The solution would have negated one of the teams' main concerns about deploying KERS in 2009: that the location of unwanted ballast in the centre of the car disrupts the ideal weight distribution towards the front

During initial testing of the new Ferrari, reports indicated that one of the problems encountered was in the area of the front wing

The front nose solution for KERS would also have resulted in the need for high-voltage cables to run through the cockpit

The saga goes some way to explaining Ferrari's negative attitude about the entire KERS deployment, given the vast sums of money spent already by the team

Ferrari's initial KERS project, developed by Magneti-Marelli, also struck technical trouble, and the more conventional third solution tested recently at Mugello reportedly delivered a questionable performance benefit

Toyota has already announced that KERS will not be fitted to its TF109 in Melbourne, and with two months to go until the season opener, most other teams are undecided

Toyota's chassis boss Pascal Vasselon told ITV: "At the moment our estimation is that KERS will be detrimental on almost all circuits, because of the weight and the difficulty to manage braking."n