Domenicali refuses to get carried away

Monday 13th July 2009

Stefano Domenicali is refusing to get carried away by Felipe Massa's podium finish in Germany, saying this year's Championship has seen too many varied performances from all the teams.

Massa went from eighth on the grid to finish third by the end of the 60 lap race around the Nurburgring, a promising result for the Brazilian and his team as it marked his first podium achievement of the campaign.

Domenicali, though, believes a large part of Massa's success was due to the conditions which played out favourably for Ferrari as it did the likes of Renault, Force India and even McLaren.

"I have to say that this year we need to be very careful, because it is very difficult to understand the performance of the car in different conditions," the team boss told Autosport.

"Even within a team on different days. If you look at the performance up and down, we saw for example a fantastic lap time from the Renault here that was amazing, and for us in different conditions it varies.

"The most critical element of the year is to understand what is happening with our car in different conditions with different tyres. But after a couple of races we see it happening with all the teams, so it is not clear yet. We need to be very careful because races are, I don't want to say decided, but at certain moments these things can really make a difference.

"If you make a good start, if you are able to control the tyre at a certain moment to get certain positions, then the race is not finished but it is something that makes a difference.

"I would say that in Germany we were very good with Felipe and Kimi, we had a good start and I must say KERS here was working even though I said before that in Abu Dhabi we would like to do something special with it. So we saw something interesting at the start and then it was good to conserve the tyres during the stint to use them when it was needed, and the team worked well.

"So at least I am positive and happy with the result. But we need to keep our feet on the ground because the others are not sleeping, the others are turning things around - look at what we have seen this weekend with Renault, McLaren and Force India.

"Unfortunately for Hamilton, he lost the race and we don't know where he could have been because he had a puncture after contact at the beginning. You see these things are on the table when you are racing, but this year is more complicated than other times."

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