|
 "Today, we achieved our objective in terms of reliability, but
the gap we need to make up, especially to Mercedes, was clear to
see," said team principal Stefano Domenicali.
"The information we have gathered this weekend clearly points to the
direction we must take and what areas need the most work...Our
engineers know what the priorities are and which areas need the most
immediate attention."
Anyone expecting to see immediate sparks between Alonso and new teammate Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn returning to the team with which he
won the 2007 championship, would have been disappointed.
Raikkonen, who started 11th after a crash in qualifying, finished
eighth but both Ferrari drivers suffered reliability problems
throughout the weekend.
"We cannot be happy with the positions that we finished in," said
Raikkonen, who won the race with Lotus last year. "But obviously at
least we got something out. It has been a very difficult weekend."
Raikkonen was hit in the first corner by Kamui Kobayashi's Caterham
and then lost a place in the pitstops when he had to wait for Alonso
ahead of him.
"The car felt pretty OK at some points, but then at some points it
was a bit tricky. The only positive thing is that we ran the whole
race and scored some points," he said.
[to top of second column] |
Two-time world champion Alonso was also searching for positives
before the next race in Malaysia in two weeks' time.
"We all had problems probably but at the end of the day both
Ferraris crossed the line which is a good effort from the team and a
good achievement," said the 32-year-old Spaniard, a distant
runner-up in the championship last year behind Red Bull's quadruple
winner Sebastian Vettel.
"On the other hand we finished 35 seconds behind leader Rosberg so
this is probably too much and we need to do better in Malaysia.
"But we are Ferrari, we are a strong team. I think these guys know
what they are doing. After the first race you probably have a little
bit better picture of which areas you need to improve the car.
"We need to analyze, we need to take care of every detail for
Malaysia and be a little bit stronger there."
(Editing by Alan Baldwin)
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