Domenicali: Ferrari will be in the battle to the end

7 March, 2013

Stefano Domenicali looks ahead to the 2013 F1 season

With the 2013 Formula 1 world championship season opening weekend only days away Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali gives his views on the season ahead, revealing that the Maranello squad is revamped for the better and ready for a hard fought contest to claim the sport’s ultimate prize.

Domenicali said, “To think of drawing conclusions after the first qualifying session in Australia would be premature because it represents only the beginning of a long voyage that ends in November.”

But conceded, “For many reasons, however, it can be considered an important test bench to establish the state of play. I expect that the teams who finished in the top positions in Sao Paulo will repeat that in Melbourne, probably with a reduced advantage – that’s what we are all hoping for, anyway.”

Fernando Alonso Ferrari F138

The general consensus is that with the new Ferrari F138 is a step forward for the team who were constantly on the back foot last year with their ‘complex’ F2012.

Domenicali gives the reasoning behind the new found form, “The new business structure, the working methods, the modifications to the equipment that we have used to work on this car, the consistency of the results compared with our targets and what we saw in the recent tests – these all seem to tell us that we are on the right path at last compared to the past.”

“So, to make an analysis that is purely centred on ourselves, unless someone else has done an exceptional job I’m convinced that Ferrari will be in the battle to the end,” predicts the Italian. ”A podium in Australia would be a good base on which to build the kind of successes we need.”

Stefano Domenicali with Fernando Alonso

Adding, “What’s more, apart from the actual performance of the car, our work in the wind tunnel is an element that gives us faith in the area of aerodynamics, where 90% of the performance comes from, so we can work with a certain calmness.”

The 2013 season will be a strain on resources as teams develop the all new 2014 car while campaigning for the championship at the same time.

He explained, “I’m sure that over the course of the season the competition will reduce because the demands on all the teams for the 2014 project cannot be underestimated. We are talking about a car that is completely different to what we’ve seen before and there’s a risk of missing the boat: the smaller the organisation, the greater and the earlier the resources they will have to invest in the new project.”

“Meanwhile for the big teams, the exercise will be to balance the resources required to keep up the development to be competitive right to the end with the attention that needs to be dedicated to 2014 to avoid the risk of being left behind,” concluded the Ferrari team principal.

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