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Ferrari team
principal Stefano Domenicali said that Felipe Massa's
strong performance in Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix was
probably his best race ever - even if it ended in a late
retirement. But he underlined that the team would stand
shoulder-to-shoulder to recover from the disappointment
and to find a cure to the team's recent performance.
"I have to say that we are very sad for Felipe," said
Domenicali, "because in my view he drove the best race
of his career today. It was fantastic the way that he
attacked when he had to attack, and he managed the race
right up to the final laps, so we are very disappointed.
"I think that he's very strong," continued Domenicali.
"If you are mentally able to manage this kind of race,
after such a big disappointment you have to take a step
forward, because you get stronger. This is what we are
all going to do together, because that's the way we are
going to approach the next race in Valencia."
Domenicali revealed that the team had prepared Massa for
his lightning start which saw him overtake both McLarens
and take the lead out of the first corner, because it
was crucial when it came to when the McLarens might make
their first pit stops.
"We prepared the race last night considering that. We
knew that in these conditions, the two effects were
relevant. We tried to simulate the start in terms of
lines because we knew that if we were in front we could
set a good pace for the first stint of the race. We were
building and informing Felipe of the gap behind him to
Hamilton just to create our race, expecting him to be, I
would say, in the region of our pit stop, maybe one two
laps more, one two laps less. So we were working around
that strategy, we were building up our lead, considering
that situation. But to be honest, you never know how
it's going to work out up to the moment that you stop."
Domenicali revealed that they had no warning of Felipe
Massa's engine failure as he completed lap 67. "Zero.
Unfortunately we had no warning, we just had the smoke
in front of us, and it was very bad. Unfortunately there
was no signal, no information, no warning on the
telemetry."
It was coincidental that Kimi Raikkonen, now third,
appeared to have a problem at the same time. "At the
end, we told him to take it easy because we felt that we
had a mechanical problem at the rear of the car so we
didn't want to take any risks. We wanted him to bring
the car home after what we saw unfortunately with Felipe
on the same lap."
Did it have any bearing on Felipe's problem? "No, no,
no. Completely different," emphasised Domenicali. "We
saw there was something on the mechanical side on the
rear that was not properly working."
So going into the next race, the European Grand Prix at
Valencia, what is Ferrari's focus: the reliability
problems experienced in Budapest, or the qualifying
problems experienced by Kimi Raikkonen in particular? "I
think both," said Domenicali. "Not only these two points
but for sure reliability because we cannot accept to
have these kind of problems, even if it was only 10
kilometers from the end. We cannot have this problem of
reliability because we are paying too much of a price
for it.
"And on the
other hand, qualifying is crucial and the difference
today was really the fact that on one side (Massa) we
were able to jump in front and do our own race as we
were able to do, and on the hand (Raikkonen), spending
the first part (of the race) in the middle of the field,
knowing that it was really impossible to do something,
in spite of having the right pace."
Valencia could also throw up problems in terms of
similar temperatures to those seen in Hungary. "What we
need to improve, looking ahead to the next Grand Prix,
is our situation in tricky conditions which may be in
terms of temperature, in terms of situation, weather,
something like that. For sure we maybe need to prepare
our cars and tyre set-up in a different way because we
saw what we suffered, for example, in Germany." The team
now has 19 days until the European Grand Prix to be held
on the streets of Valencia, Spain.
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