Montezemolo: A positive start to the Championship

Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo has declared himself satisfied with the result of yesterday’s season-opening Grand Prix, announcing on Ferrari.com: "’La Speranzosa’ (The Hopeful One as he has dubbed the new car) is living up to ...our hopes. We did what we expected to do. We raced a good race, particularly against Red Bull and Vettel, whom I consider our strongest rival. Our goal was to make it to the podium and we did that. That’s definitely a positive start to the Championship and will be good for the team psychologically: for the mechanics, the technicians and the drivers. It was important to start the season well as that hadn’t happened in the last two years.”

The car’s performance is, of course, the most important thing, but that aside, Montezemolo also highlighted the starts, pit stops and race strategy as three areas that worked very well yesterday. Areas that will be fundamental to the entire season, even though, as he said: “We have more development to do on the single-seater. We know we don’t have the fastest car but we have a lot of irons in the fire too. And obviously, developing an intrinsically good car is a much easier thing to do.”

The Ferrari chairman saved the last word for the drivers: “I’m satisfied with Felipe Massa’s performance – he was very fast in qualifying and delivered a brilliant race. Fernando Alonso also did very well. He looked motivated and happy to have seen the first good responses to the tests confirmed on the track. So now, it’s feet back on the ground because there’s still a lot of work to do.”