Ferrari: Alonso was poised to attack

Date published : 15 Mar 2010 - 09:46:24

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali says Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel did not have victory guaranteed prior to their spark plug problem as Fernando Alonso was poised to mount a late attack.Alonso led Felipe Massa in a Ferrari one-two yesterday - but only after early race leader Vettel lost power and slowed with 15 laps to go.Although Alonso had closed Vettel's early 5s lead to just 1.5s in the middle of the race, Vettel had been confident that he had the Ferrari under control.However Domenicali said Alonso had been biding his time and saving tyres ready to pounce on Vettel as the leader's rubber faded in the closing laps - and although he wasn't certain that the Ferrari would have been able to get past, he reckoned a grandstand finish had been on the cards."That was the plan," said Domenicali."You couldn't do anything more than saving the tyres and try to attack in the later stages of the race. "If we had the pace to do it or not, unfortunately, or fortunately, you cannot say that but what we can say for sure is that at that stage of the race we were managing the situation. "I think that we were in a pretty good position in any case."While very proud that Ferrari had immediately bounced back from its poor 2009 campaign, Domenicali said his team was still expecting a huge fight for the title - and not just with Red Bull."The season is very, very long and we have to stay with our feet on the ground because I am expecting all the others to be very aggressive and very competitive," he said."I think that I want to respect all the others."Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes are all strong because now we will see who will do a different step of development, who will come with new things sooner than the others, and we need to see what is the situation with the tyres in the future in different grands prix, different configurations, different temperatures."So, I have a lot of respect for all the competitors."We have seen this weekend that everything is so close and marginal, and that during the race anything can happen."