28/03/2012
NEWS STORY
Call it divine intervention, luck, whatever you will, fact is, Stefano Domenicali is under no illusions about Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix win, his team still has much work to do.
With a three week gap until the next round of the 2012 championship there is no time for the Maranello outfit to celebrate its Sepang success, instead the race is on to improve the F2012 in order to close the gap to the leaders and allow the team to take them on in all conditions.
Victory in Malaysia and Alonso's name at the top of the drivers' classification has had no effect on the order of priorities established a week ago, when Domenicali and Pat Fry made a lightning visit to the factory immediately after the Melbourne race. The number one goal is to try and find as soon as possible the few tenths that separate the F2012 from the group of fastest cars.
"I asked all my people to push to the maximum to try and bring forward as much as possible the developments planned for the next few races," Domenicali told his team's website. "Having Fernando leading the championship means nothing and we definitely don't think all our problems have been made to vanish with the wave of a magic wand.
"We have two weeks to prepare for another back-to-back run, first in China and then Bahrain and we will tackle these races with the same spirit we adopted in Australia and Malaysia, which means striving to be perfect on track and getting the most out of the tools at our disposal, while making the most of whatever opportunities come along. With Fernando, playing the counter-attacking game worked perfectly: hitting the back of the net in Sepang was really great! We did not manage it with Felipe and we have to do more to ensure he too is in the best possible position to score."
Indeed, Massa's form, or lack of it, concerns Domenicali, who is well aware of the Brazilian's poor start to the season. "I well remember that, four years ago, in fact right after a Malaysian Grand Prix, which was won for us by Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe was more or less in the same situation as today," he said. "The papers were demanding his immediate replacement and he managed to react in the best way possible, thanks to support from the team, which saw him win two of the next three races. We remember how that particular season ended, with the Brazilian actually world champion, even if it was just for a few seconds, while we took our sixteenth constructors' title.
"Felipe has changed his plans and, instead of heading home to see his family in Brazil, he will be in Maranello today (Wednesday) to work alongside the engineers to calmly analyse everything that happened in these past two races, trying to identify why he was not able to deliver what he is capable of. That's the right spirit and we are here, ready to help him."
After routine medical and physical checks at the Physiology Centre in Forli, Alonso was back in Maranello on Tuesday afternoon, to go over the current situation with Domenicali, Technical Director Pat Fry and his race engineer, Andrea Stella. He also took the opportunity to meet Luca di Montezemolo again, having already spent a long time in discussion with him on Monday.