Having started fifth and finished fifth, one could say that Michael Schumacher didn't do too badly at Hockenheim. Even the seven-time World Champion tried to put a brave face on things: "Fifth place is okay in that I did not lose any positions from where I started," he said, "but of course I was hoping to do something better for the fans."
The most depressing thing about Germany 2005 - other than Rubens Barrichello's Sunday afternoon cruise to tenth - was watching Michael struggle for much of the race, before being 'picked off' by both Jenson Button and Giancarlo Fisichella.
Hockenheim made it abundantly clear where Ferrari, and more importantly Bridgestone, is, compared to the opposition.
Not surprisingly, it was a drained, stern-faced Jean Todt, who sat down to answer a few post-race questions.
He began by attempting to sum up the feeling within his team at present.
"It's frustrating," he admits, "but we know that when we do this business you have some ups, some downs. We have had some downs, we have had some ups and now we have some downs, but still, motivation is clear.
"When you see Michael's race today, he did one of his best races: fighting all the time, but the problem is that in this business you must fight with the package you are driving and at the moment, he could not do better. It's quite easy to analyse the race. You see that for 20-22 laps, we had a reasonable trend; then he started to drop a little bit and then, when Button passed him, he was already losing quite a lot and then he lost 28 seconds in 23 laps. So it's clear that we lack grip, and we don't lack grip all the time. It's an evolution and our evolution is bigger than for the others."
Both Michael and Rubens were on entirely different strategies, Todt is asked to explain why.
"It was not so different," he responds, "it was mainly the tyre choice which was different. One was on soft, the other one was on hard, one was with 22 laps of fuel, the other on 26 so it wasn't such a big difference. We simply knew we were going to be marginal with the soft, with the tyre wear, which we were. We thought that we could be performing better for most of the race. In fact we were performing quite well for 23 laps, 22 laps and we thought Rubens would be penalised, but maybe less than what he was on the qualifying lap but that he would be much quicker during the race, which wasn't the case."
Before Germany, the team has seemed quite optimistic with regards the new tyres at its disposal.
"I would say that it's like when you get knocked down on your arse," he replies, "the skin becomes tougher so I would say that we have had so many delusions, even if the word is a bit too strong, but until we see some substantial improvement we just prefer to see the thing in a negative way rather than in a positive way in order to have a good surprise. So we are prepared for a bad surprise at the moment.
"Clearly, for part of this season we have been struggling with grip in qualifying," he continues. "We slightly improved the situation, mainly with the choice of tyres Michael made for this race, and then we used to be very strong during the race. At the moment we are not strong during the race. Most of the field, when they saw us in 8th, 9th, tenth position, they were expecting then the car… In a way like Montoya did today, but it was simply the other way around."
It's clear that the problem is grip - or lack of it - but how does one find that grip: mechanical grip, aerodynamic grip, the specification of the tyres?
"We did not change the aerodynamics of the car during the course of the race," he responds, "so if you see the evolutions of the times, it's clear that we miss grip because of degradation of our tyres during the course of the race, or we don't have enough grip for qualifying, or we have an excess of degradation during the course of the race.
There is no official FIA ruling on testing, the 30-day limit between nine of the teams this season is an agreement between those teams. Over the next few weeks the teams will recognize the three-week Summer break, yet Ferrari may well decide to continue testing.
"We need to identify how to improve the grip on the car so we may find, we may not find," says the Frenchman. "I'm sure we will find it, but I'm far from knowing when exactly we will find it. So we just need to focus, to concentrate and to address the problem well and we will solve the situation. I would have preferred to solve it quicker and earlier but it's not the case.
"Sometimes we don't see in private testing what we see during the race, because of the temperatures are different," he adds, "because the rubber on the tarmac is different, because there are so many elements."
But would there be time, during the next three weeks, to test a new family of rubber perhaps, a completely new construction, a new compound?
