edelliseen viitaten:
La Gazzetta:
Domenicali aims low
Massa: "At least one victory"
Ferrari's team manager has set a minimum target for this season: "We want to finish at least third in the constructors' championship. We will try to improve the F60 for the next fortnight, then we'll concentrate on the car for 2010." Felipe: "It would be nice to win at least one GP."
NURBURGRING (Germany), 13 July 2009 - Two more weeks' work for this season, then they will turn to the future: the car which has to be competitive for 2010, as team manager Stefano Domenicali has outlined. "In the next few days the team will devote itself to a last few developments to be ready for the upcoming race," he explained. "In particular there will be aerodynamic innovations, to keep step with the competition. As we saw in Germany other constructors are making enormous steps forward. Look at Red Bull, which has been really extraordinary and can seriously consider reopening the world championship, but also at teams like Toyota, Renault, McLaren and Force India."
MINIMUM OBJECTIVE These are Ferrari's direct rivals for what is now their declared objective for the season: "We want to finish third in the constructors' championship," admits Domenicali. "Yesterday we gained on Toyota, who now have a lead of just 2.5 points, but we certainly can't allow ourselves to give up. In Nurburgring we did very well with an excellent start and we managed the race strategy well, but our rivals are very strong. Look at Sutil's Force India for instance, or the progress which McLaren have made, and the fast laps which Alonso achieved in his Renault in the last part of the race." A third place finish won't be enough to overcome the many problems of the F60. "In the next few days," he says, "we will have to think long and hard on the performance of the tyres, on the roadholding problems and on the reasons why we have had such variable performances within a single weekend."
THE DRIVERS Massa and Raikkonen are also asking the same questions. The former did well to finish on the podium while the latter was unlucky in hitting a piece of detritus which punctured his radiator. "We'll try to do our best to get back to winning this season," stated the Brazilian, encouraged by his first podium finish of the season. Raikkonen meanwhile is keeping his head down: notwithstanding the rumours which suggest he may be replaced at Ferrari by Alonso, he commented, "Let's hope that the car will do better next year."
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FELIPE HAPPY - But Ferrari were happy to be on the podium. Massa was the first of the non-Red Bull cars, which today was certainly a great result: "I missed not be being in the top three," said the Brazilian, "it was a fantastic race, I struggled a bit with the soft tyres, but I managed to stay in front of Sebastian, and when I put the second set of tyres on I kept up a good pace. I'm happy, and also for the team which did a great job with the strategy and in the pit-stops. The podium finish will motivate everybody to prepare as well as we can for the end of the championship and for next year." Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari's team manager, was also satisfied: "Massa drove a great race, we're very happy. It's a shame Kimi Raikkonen had to retire because they would have been useful points - we've got our eye on the constructors' championship, and we've picked up some points on Toyota, but we have to keep working hard. What should we expect? The others are going very well, all it takes are mistakes at a crucial moments and races can go badly, but we're aiming to take third place in the constructors' championship."
