05/09/2012
NEWS STORY
Keen to put the misery of Spa behind him, Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali looks ahead to Monza convinced that the outcome of the championship is in his team's hands.
"Naturally, there was disappointment from a sporting point of view, because the final result could have been totally different," he said of last weekend's race which saw championship leader Fernando Alonso taken out at the first corner. "I believe that, seeing how the race developed, we could have collected some very important points for the championship.
"The relief comes from the fact that there could have been a very serious injury for Fernando," he continued, "but he is fine, no problem at all. He came back with us on the charter flight to Maranello and on Monday, he was fine, without pain and already totally focussed on the next race.
"We left Belgium with the awareness that the championship is still in our hands," he continued. "It is in the hands of all the people at Maranello, who have to improve our car, because it is not yet at the level it should be. The competition is still very open and Fernando is still leading the championship and that is the basis on which we can look ahead."
However, Spa wasn't all bad, Felipe Massa's spirited drive to fifth scored further points for the Maranello outfit in the Constructors' Championship as well as preventing Mark Webber closing the gap to his Spanish teammate.
"I'm very happy for Felipe," said Domenicali. "We needed that sort of race from him as a team and he himself needed it as a driver. After a very difficult qualifying the day before, in the race he showed a very strong pace. We need to see that again, not only in Monza this weekend, but also for the rest of the season."
"There is a special feeling for our home race, but the reality is that the number of points on offer are the same as at the other 19 rounds, all around the world. To sum it up, I would like to think we can leave Monza having scored very special points at what is a very special race for us. This will be a challenging weekend from the technical point of view. All the teams, including ourselves, will run cars in a one-off specification to meet the very low downforce requirements that are unique to this track and we know several of our rivals are very competitive at this type of circuit."
While it has been said that the home crowd at Silverstone has given British drivers a few-tenths of a second a lap, Domenicali hopes the Tifosi will bring a similar boost to the home team this weekend.
"We will have so many fans supporting us in the Autodromo and I'm sure that we will get a boost from the emotion they will transfer to the team and the drivers. The more "horsepower" the fans can give us, the better. We will be doing all we can to repay them for that support. All the same, I am not going to make any predictions, except to say I hope we bring home a good points haul from Monza."