Domenicali: Lessons were learnt

Domenicali

While on the surface Australia was not good for Ferrari, Stefano Domenicali says it at least gave them the chance to understand the issues with their F2012.

Ferrari faltered in Saturday's first qualifying of the season as, pushing too hard, Fernando Alonso beached his car in the gravel while Felipe Massa sorely lacked pace. The duo qualified P12 and P16 respectively.

Sunday's 58-lap grand prix, though, was better for the Italian stable with Alonso finishing in fifth place. A crash late in the grand prix put Massa into retirement.

And although ten points is not a great start to the season for a team wanting to fight for the titles, Domenicali says Ferrari at least have a better understanding of where their problems lie.

"I think we learned for sure a couple of things," said the team boss.

"Above all, the performance of the first two stints of the race was not too bad, considering really the situation. Then after the safety car something happened so we need to understand what was the real problem, because we saw a different race pace if you compare the first two and the last one. So this is the analysis that we have to do.

"I think on that respect the race of Fernando was very, very good. Considering as I said the level of performance, to be fifth is something important.

"Considering the situation of the Championship that I am expecting to see this year that it is vital that when we have so many problems to score these points.

"I would say that is a step forward, but we don't have to hide behind that, because we are not happy about the performance of the car. What I'm asking to my engineers is to really as much as possible to try to fix the things that in their view are now much clearer."

He added: "We have understood the problems of the car. This is clear. What I really need to say that after the understanding we need to make sure that we fix it, and not only fix it, but to fix it as soon as possible.

"In terms of the chassis there's nothing going ahead. In terms of developments, yes, there are a lot of things that have to be improved, because I think there are two fundamental issues, one is the speed and the other thing is really the traction.

"Those are the two fundamental things that we really need to solve, and we really need hard to fix as soon as possible these major issues." Planet F1