Montezemolo: I have faith in the team, now it’s time for results

The Scuderia Ferrari engineers have already got back to work yesterday morning, having returned from the Nürburgring in the middle of the night aboard a charter flight. This marks the end of a double-header that, along with the inevitable stress load, seems to have generated new perspectives. At the usual meeting that follows every grand prix Sunday between President Montezemolo, Team Principal Stefano Domenicali and the team’s engineers, the agenda included the development programme of the F138 and planning for the next two crucial dates in the diary: the Young Driver Test taking place at Britain’s Silverstone circuit from July 17-19 and the Hungarian Grand Prix on the weekend of July 28 at the Hungaroring on the outskirts of Budapest.

Even though the last two weeks have been notable for a huge effort to improve the car and to reduce the gap to the front especially in qualifying, plus the question of tyres, the team wants to respond with even more of a push. That’s only right at a crucial moment of the season because now it is no longer just a question of tyre management or adapting to weather conditions, but also the obligation to define the direction of development of the F138.

Luca di Montezemolo told ferrari.com: “Today we looked at the agenda for the coming weeks of work to clarify the priorities along with the engineers. Now I ask of everyone a greater determination and strong concentration on every detail. I have enormous faith in the team and I expect a concrete response from everyone, because only through great will and plenty of work will it be possible to come away with the results that we all want. To sum up: fewer words and more achievements.”

Yesterday Scuderia Ferrari left the Nürburgring clearly disappointed with Fernando Alonso’s fourth place and Felipe Massa’s retirement. Those results didn’t match up to expectations and they were not attributable to external factors. But what can be seen today on the faces of all the Scuderia’s men and women working at Maranello is a great desire to get going again, as illustrated by the words of Team Principal Stefano Domenicali: “Yet again we have had a confirmation of the importance of analysing the data and managing the tyre behaviour. That is the same for everyone but we must try to get even more out of them than the others if we want to win. That also applies to the development of the F138, an area where we must do better than our opponents. Now we have some decisive weeks ahead looking towards Hungary. There is a crucial test which we must exploit to the maximum, in terms of both the performance of the tyres and the technical development of the car. Everything is still to play for because we are only halfway through the champoinship and the goals we had at the start of the year are still within reach.”