F1: Domenicali - Ferrari Still Focused On Improving F2012

Formula 1

F1: Domenicali - Ferrari Still Focused On Improving F2012

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali says the F2012 is still lacking in speed, despite Fernando Alonso's surprising win in Malaysia...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 26, 2012 Sepang (MAS)

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali has echoed Fernando Alonso by saying that the Malaysian GP win does nothing to change the fact that the F2012 is still off the pace of the frontrunning cars.

The team boss conceded that the win would be a useful morale boost as the Maranello crew seeks to find the missing speed.

“First of all, as you can imagine, I am very happy about the result of today,” said Domenicali after Sunday’s Malaysian GP. “Because considering that we are not happy at all about the level of our performance, and looking at the numbers, [the fact that] we are leading the championship with Fernando is really great news.

“But the result of today doesn’t change at all what we are doing at home, because as we know we need to improve the performance of this car. What I’ve urged to my people is to make sure that this will happen as soon as possible.

“This is a good emotional moment, a breath in a moment of a lot of pressure, that I hope can be really a boost for the people at home to bring new developments as soon as possible.

“Fernando did an amazing race. I’m very happy because it’s quite a long time that – touching wood as you say in English, touching other things in Italy – in terms of strategy the team is working very good, in terms of choices and calls.”

Domenicali said the result would take some pressure off his shoulders – but not for long.

“For two days,” he said. “I will go home on Sunday with a little less pressure, but on Monday, the pressure is the same. As I said, nothing will change. If we have another bad race or bad qualifying in China, the situation will be exactly the same. So we need to stay cool and calm, and that’s it.

“We know in terms of pure performance where is the limit of our car, so we calculate that. We are working knowing that we have to recover in dry and qualifying conditions almost seven or eight tenths to the leaders, and this is the target that we need to make sure that we decrease as soon as possible.”

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.