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Scuderia
Ferrari Team Principal Stefano Domenicali was cautious
in his appraisal of the stewards' decision following
Lewis Hamilton's 25s penalty after the Belgian Grand
Prix. The McLaren-Mercedes driver overtook Ferrari's
Kimi Raikkonen at the final chicane by short-cutting it,
and although he eased up to let Raikkonen past again, he
was found to be in breach of the sporting regulations
and given a 25s penalty, added to his race time which
dropped him from winner to third place, handing victory
to Ferrari's Felipe Massa. McLaren later gave notice of
appeal against the stewards' decision.
"We are not used to commenting on decisions," said
Domenicali later. "The only thing I would say is that as
soon as we had been summoned by the stewards, we gave
our position to the stewards and that was it. Then for
sure the stewards listened to the Hamilton argument, and
that was the decision. We don't want to make any further
comment."
Domenicali pointed out that Ferrari had nothing to do
with the lodging of the protest. "We were simply
summoned by the stewards at the end of the race," he
said, before adding that it was only about the manoeuvre
at the last chicane."
However, Domenicali did say that privately he thought
"it was a little bit extreme. It's normal that when you
attack you are racing but the problem is the advantage
that may be taken by doing a manoeuvre like this and
this is the key point of it. I think that that's the
focus that has to be considered."
And Domenicali was also quick to praise Raikkonen who
had been so quick before the rain at the end of the
race. "It was really a shame that he was not able to
finish because he drove a fantastic race. He was pushing
hard as you can see from his lap times, and then he
found it a little bit more difficult on the last set of
hard tyres on which he was not able to push as hard as
he wanted, and of course at the end, it was really
difficult because he went off. But it was good to see
that he is very motivated and he's pushing as hard as he
can."
Before notice of appeal had been given, Domenicali was
asked if the team would still give equal opportunity to
its drivers for the championship. "We will take the
decision in the interests of the team. In my view, the
situation that we have now is something that we need to
think about in no hurry because it's something that is
part of our approach to the races. When and if we feel
that it's the right time, we are going to do it.
"This result is something that opens up the championship
in a different way but it doesn't mean that we will
change our approach. As I said, it will be very tough,
but at least we are leading one of the two championships
and we are very close in the other."
But with the Italian Grand Prix just one week away, the
team's concentration is on that race, says Domenicali.
"There are so many events that we take back home, what
we have to do to prepare for Monza in the right way.
This is the main target that we need to be focused on in
the next few days.
"Monza, for us, is not really the ideal track, as much
as anything because we are not expecting really high
temperatures. So the only thing we can do is really to
try to work very very hard, because we know that McLaren
is very very strong above all in Monza, but not only
there as we can see.
"Yesterday we were very impressed by their performance
in qualifying. To be honest, that shows how tense the
championship is, how close it will be to the end. We
know that they are very strong, and we cannot give up
for a second. Today, there was another lesson. You
really need to wait. We always said that but today it
was really obvious: you have to wait not only to the end
of the race but also afterwards. That shows that really
the situation is very complicated."
One cause for concern which was highlighted in Belgium
was the performance on harder tyres. "For sure it's
something that we need to work on a lot," concluded
Domenicali, "because we will have the same kind of tyres
in Monza and this is something that can be a crucial
element that will make the difference in the performance
of the car at Monza."
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