Ferrari promises urgent action

Date published : 05 Apr 2010 - 10:02:23

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali has pledged to quickly get to the bottom of the reliability and strategical issues that spoiled his team's Malaysian Grand Prix weekend. The Italian squad was one of several front-runners that left it too late to go out in the wet Q1 at Sepang, leaving Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa 19th and 21st on the grid. Although Massa made it through to seventh in the race, Alonso's day was compromised by a race-long downshift and clutch problem and ultimately an engine failure. With engine glitches also afflicting the Ferrari-powered Saubers, Domenicali admitted it had been a worrying race. "Any problem with reliability is a worry and we have to make sure we solve it as soon as possible," he said. "Unfortunately this weekend was our worst weekend in terms of an overall result, because of two main factors: reliability was unfortunately not good enough, but we cannot forget that the bad result this weekend is mainly related to qualifying. "When you start from 19th and 21st, to be [in the points] is already a miracle. "What happened [in qualifying] was not acceptable - it's a lesson learned." Ferrari still leads both championships as Red Bull's messy start to the season meant that even its Sepang one-two wasn't enough to thrust it right to the front. Domenicali reckons that there is now little to choose between Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren. "If I had to look from a number point of view, we are leading the championship so we should be the fastest," he said. "We know that's a very optimistic approach, and that's not the way that we think. "Looking at the results of the first three grands prix, Red Bull had three pole positions and they had issues [in the races] on two occasions, so for sure REd Bull seems to be the most competitive car. "But I don't want to forget that also McLaren seems very good, and that's the ranking that I see if I had to appraise the situation today. "But we are there, we are competitive and we are strong." He said development would now be vital - both in terms of bringing new parts, and making sure those new parts didn't compromise reliability. "We need to keep working very, very strongly on the development of the car because I'm expecting the others to do some new steps," said Domenicali. "We have a competitive package but it's never enough. "We need to make sure that when we bring new parts to the track, they are reliable."