F1: Alonso Deserved The Championship, Says Domenicali

Formula 1

F1: Alonso Deserved The Championship, Says Domenicali

Ferrari has narrowly missed the championship twice in the last three years...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted November 26, 2012 Sao Paulo (BRA)

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali says the team must work on finding more speed for 2013. (Photo: Getty Images)

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali insists that Fernando Alonso would have been a more deserving World Champion than Sebastian Vettel.

Domenicali stressed once again that the first-lap retirements in Spa and Suzuka had been very costly.

“We are proud of him, and we are very disappointed because I think the one that deserved the championship was really him,” said Domenicali. “It’s a shame because after such a long season when we really fought in all conditions that we raced in 18 races and not 20. Being second only three points for that hurts a lot. But that’s the way it is. We need to take it and congratulate (Sebastian) Vettel who has won the championship.

“Sometimes it’s a sign of the destiny that you really can appreciate what is the direction of the wind. Because after the first lap, after you see what has happened, seeing what was the outcome of the first lap, you start to think, well, maybe... For sure, we need to do a better job next year.”

Asked by SPEED.com about the tricky strategy decisions in the wet Brazilian GP, he said: “It was a very difficult race, in difficult conditions. The first situation, if I remember, was only (Jenson) Button and (Nico) Hulkenberg decided to stay out with the dry tires. It was a decision that at the end as always, when you take this kind of decision you are fantastic but if two more drops of rain took them out, it would have been a wrong decision.

“So I think that we took the decision in a way that was most correct for what we had to do, without risking too much either in a conservative or a strange way what we should have been done. On that respect, I think the team managed very well the situation. Not easy.”

Domenicali praised the consistent job that Alonso has done in 2012.

“I said before this Grand Prix that in my view Fernando did his best season, always at the limit,” the Ferrari team boss said. “Not always from the technical point of view, because this is something you expect from a World Champion like him, but also from the way he was working with the team.

“For me this is something that we have the privilege to have, but unfortunately in the last three years, we lost two times at the last race, and we need to make sure that when we start next year we’re going to arrive in the last race to win.”

Regarding preparations for next year, he said: “This is a fact: don’t forget that in the last four races we are the team that has scored more points. In racing we were maybe the best on average in terms of managing the pit stops, managing the strategy, the best on reliability. These are facts. We didn’t have the fastest car at the beginning of the season, and maybe in the second half of the season we were not able to improve the car.

“For sure, this is something that we need to work harder to improve it, and we have, of course, ideas because we know where we lack a bit. And we also know unfortunately that we were paying a big price in the qualifying that hurts our performance in the race.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.