Ferrari not giving up on 2010 car

Ferrari is not prepared to give up on its 2010 car, despite falling off the pace last weekend in Turkey.

Fernando Alonso failed to make the Q3 qualifying session at Istanbul Park, while Felipe Massa was the Maranello team’s highest placed finisher — behind the Red Bulls, the McLarens, the Mercedes and the Renault of Robert Kubica.

Ferrari’s F10 will feature a specific low-downforce bodywork package in Montreal next weekend, before a big update of changes is debuted at Valencia later this month.

Spain’s AS newspaper believes the Valencia update will include a major repackaging of the rear end and exhaust system.

But team boss Stefano Domenicali denies that if the upgrade fails to pull Ferrari back to the front of the grid, Ferrari will begin to focus on 2011.

"We are not going to stop developing this car - we are not throwing away these races so far," he is quoted as saying.

Even though the Italian media is decrying Ferrari’s "disaster" and "crisis", Alonso is only 14 points off the lead of the drivers’ championship.

Domenicali insisted: "We will continue working on the F10 until the end of the season."

"The championship is still open and we have seen that anything can happen in the races. We will not give up."

Spaniard Alonso agrees that Ferrari is still in a position to fight for the title, arguing that no matter how good the Valencia upgrade, it will not be enough to close the gap to the front.

"We know that McLaren and Red Bull are very far away and we don’t know if that’s enough. We have to work hard," he said.

"We don’t know how long it is going to take, but the truth is that we are almost eight tenths from Red Bull and 6 or 7 tenths from McLaren, and these developments (for Valencia) are not going to give us that much."