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"What we have to do is work very hard and
keep our feet on the ground, concentrate and
that's the way we are used to doing it:
reply on the track," says Scuderia Ferrari
Team Principle Stefano Domenicali. |
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Scuderia
Ferrari Marlboro team principal Stefano Domenicali
revealed a special reason for extra celebration after
Ferrari's one-two in the Bahraini GP at the weekend. "We
are celebrating here the 100th victory since our
president Montezemolo became president of Ferrari so
it's a special event for all of us. I think it's
important because he's always with us and celebrating
this with a one-two is very important."
Domenicali was ask how important it was for winner
Felipe Massa to have a good result in Bahrain, after
failing to score in the first two races of the season.
"I think that it was important for him, for sure,"
replied Domenicali, "but it was important for the team
to have this 18 point race. We saw that right from
Friday our car was really good, and it's a shame when
you have a car that is good not to score 18 points. It
would be nice to see both drivers on the first step of
the podium but that's impossible so I think from the
team's point of view, it was really a great response,
that's teamwork, as always and I would say that it."
How much pressure was the Brazilian feeling, coming into
the Bahrain weekend? "It's normal when you don't have
any points, that you feel frustrated because you want to
show what is your performance, your standard. But what
we said is that we need to stay cool and calm. If we
work well, this is the response and of course it's a
daily job in order to always keep the team together: the
drivers, the mechanics, the team and we win together, we
lose together so that's the way we have always been
working."
Domenicali was asked how worried he was about BMW Sauber,
who have now twice finished second to Ferrari. "As I've
always said, since the beginning, I was expecting a
tough championship this year, including BMW, which had
already shown, during testing, that it was better than
last year. I always said that and this confirms what I
always thought since the beginning, that it would be a
very long championship, very long. It is a
classification than is closer to soccer than an F1
season, and we are three teams covered by two points.
"That shows that we cannot lose one vital step because
the others can take more important points, so it will be
important to keep up the pace of reliability. We must
not forget that we have to keep on developing our car to
the maximum, because the others will not sleep, they
will be back again very strongly in Spain and I'm
expecting McLaren to be back again and up to standard in
Barcelona. So what we have to do is work very hard and
keep our feet on the ground, concentrate and that's the
way we are used to doing it: reply on the track."
So who is the toughest competitor at the moment? "Right
now," said Domenicali, "I have to say that we expect it
to be both McLaren and BMW because we must not
over-react to anything. As always, from the pragmatic
point of view, we need to consider the points. The
points show that BMW is in front of us in the
Constructors' championship, and in the Drivers'
championship they are behind Kimi so they are all there,
but I am expecting McLaren to be back on the pace again
very soon."
Will Ferrari be bringing a lot of developments to
Barcelona? "We must not lose concentration, we need to
keep up the pace in terms of reliability and
performance. That's the reason why we want to bring
something new to every race. Even if it's small it's
important, because I'm not expecting the others to
sleep. I'm pretty sure they are flat out, trying to do
what they can, because the championship is open, we are
still in only the first part, Spain is only the fourth
race so it's very very long."
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