Q&A with Jean Todt & Stefano Domenicali

Q & A with Todt and Domenicali
By Jonathan Noble Monday, June 11th 2007, 14:33 GMT

Jean Todt: Pointless to say that we are very disappointed, because we lost important points. We have been beaten by... obviously because Kimi with the only Ferrari finishing the race is finishing fifth but we feel we were able to compete against all the others except the winner's team.

For the second race in a row we have been beaten by a team more competitive than our team. It's a big shame that we had to have one car excluded but there's no complaint.

You have a red light, if you don't stop in front of the red light you get excluded, so that's it and we have to analyse very carefully the situation. I've seen them in different circumstances, so let's hope that soon we are able to do a better job.

Q. Why was the pitlane closed at the time that Massa came out and did you tell him that the pitlane had a red light?

JT: He did not pay attention, he was concentrating on going out, not having any car passing him, and we did not tell him anything.

Q. Renault said they can't see the red light from the pit wall. Is that the same for you?

Stefano Domenicali: No, from our position, no.

JT: But you know, honestly, it's not a question because it's in the rules, so if you have a procedure where you say 'be careful, you will have the red light', you don't have to see. We didn't say (that) to him and he did not pay attention.

Q. The season started you being over a second faster around Australia than McLaren. It's evolved through Bahrain, where you were pole and win, Spain pole and win and now it seems to have gone to a situation where you are half a second slower than the McLaren.

JT: Too much, but it's not a second, I think it's four tenths. Four tenths. On this type of circuit, it was the same kind of difference already in Monte Carlo two weeks ago, so definitely they did a good step forward. Maybe the specification of the circuits were more against our car, I think we will have a quick answer next week.

I'm not saying that next week we will be in front but at least it's a different kind of circuit, you have a lot of common points between Monte Carlo and Canada so we will have a different idea on a different circuit in one week's time.

Q. Do you have confidence that the rate of development for the second half of the season will be on a par with or slightly better than McLaren?

JT: I don't know. I don't know what they are preparing. I know that we are preparing a series of developments. What it will give? Will it be enough, not enough? I will say time will tell.

Q. This circuit has got a certain characteristic in terms of being hard on brakes and obviously a lot of changes of direction. Is that where you felt you were suffering?

JT: Mainly we were missing traction in slow corners.

Q. Do you feel that BMW has closed the gap on Ferrari or perhaps even leap-frogged ahead of Ferrari in the last two weekends?

JT: It was a strange race because the introduction of safety cars, so definitely it did not help our strategy. We had to stop our two cars earlier than planned so we could not get advantage of it and that compromised the race significantly.

Q. You came into this race appearing to be quite confident about improving your form from Monte Carlo but perhaps that wasn't the case. Do you feel there's a problem within the car or do you feel that it's just extracting the maximum of performance from the whole weekend?

JT: In certain conditions we were not quick enough. Our engineers have to analyse very deeply and then understand (the reasons).

Q. Is that a surprise? Because you went into Barcelona with a revised chassis and revised aerodynamic package and we expected you to be very strong and in Barcelona you were, but it doesn't seem as if the revisions to the car have really paid the dividends that we expected.

JT: But you know Barcelona was Barcelona and in the meantime there was a new introduction of developments for Monte Carlo and for Canada which are two completely different circuits. Probably if we went back to Barcelona we would be in a position to win the race, we don't know.

Q. Did Kimi have any particular problems?

JT: Yeah, he had some problems, he slightly touched a car at the start, and then he got some parts of the crashed car in front in the front wing, as you could all see, and definitely (that) damaged the performance of his car.

Q. Kimi had quite a problem with the super soft tyres at the end of the race. How difficult was it to get the right tyre management?

JT: When you say Kimi... all the drivers with the super soft tyres had problems.

Q. Lewis didn't have any.

JT: He was in front, he was just taking care of the advantage he had on everybody, but if you take Alonso, who was behind Kimi, once he damaged his tyres, he was two seconds slower than Kimi at the end of the race.

Q. Are you surprised today with the low downforce package?

JT: We were hoping to be more competitive, yes.

Q. Question for both of you, this is the first time this season we've seen the new safety car regulations work and the complications that arise from that. Do you think that they work properly or do we need to look again at how they work and perhaps improve them?

SD: As we always knew before having it in practice, it was a completely different approach of course. If you ask that question to Lewis Hamilton, I think he would be very pleased. But of course, that's the way the regulations are, we know that.

For sure that's something that we need to consider for the future, because the more pitstops you have to do, and the more risk you have to run, if you are in the window of bad luck, for example, Alonso and Rosberg had to pit because they were without any fuel, this is part of the new rule that all the teams have accepted. Today, unfortunately we were not very lucky, I have to say, but who knows in the future?

Q. The rules were introduced to stop people racing back to the pits, is there a better way of controlling that situation?

SD: I know that the FIA tried to discuss a different alternative with all the teams, a different option. It's always difficult to find the right decision with no black points. We need to remind (ourselves) of the reason why the FIA introduced that, because they wanted to avoid any racing on the safety car lap because it was very dangerous and of course that was the starting point.

Q. Was it clear to you when the pitlane was closed, there was no confusion?

SD: No, no, that was clear.

Q. There's no indication for the drivers, is there?

SD: It's just a message on the screen where basically we have the message of 'safety car deployed', then 'pitlane open', then 'lapped cars may now overtake', as it was the last safety car with Davidson, and on that respect it was OK, it was clear.

Q. You're 28 points behind McLaren in the championship now, does that change the way you approach or attack the second half of the season?

JT: We will keep trying to do our best.

Q. Do you think the championship is still a possibility?

JT: Eleven races, if we do a good job, it's just over two points per race, so…Every time it's getting more difficult but it's no reason not to believe it.

Q. How do Kimi and Felipe feel personally after the last two races; they've had a disappointing outing. Have you spoken to them and tried to give them encouragement and confidence?

JT: Of course we are all disappointed and they are disappointed. It's normal, natural in this business but the only way to react is to try to deliver a good job and to make them a good support and come up with good cars, that's all.

Q. Do you feel that Ferrari has lost something; obviously there's a number of people who aren't here this year, who were there in the year's before. The man in the street, who takes a casual interest in Formula One, would probably draw that conclusion. Would he be wrong?

JT: I could understand the question if we hadn't done any good results since the beginning of the season, but you must see the facts, and I think that since the beginning of the season we got four pole positions out of six races, we've won three Grands Prix so I don't think you can say it's a disaster for Ferrari.

We are not happy about it but you see some other very strong teams who are there, who did not win any races, who did not make four pole positions, so I think the sensible guy in the street should understand that as well.

Q. What did you think of Lewis's performance today, his first win, thoughts on that and the job he did?

JT: It's the same (as before). He's doing a great job with a great car and a great team and he's able to put everything together, but the season is not yet finished.