Domenicali: “Clear gap from Mercedes, we need to improve immediately”

Stefano Domenicali admitted that Ferrari has a lot of work to do to close the heavy performance gap from Mercedes. Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen finished the Australian GP in fifth and eighth place respectively.

“The first match of the championship provided a clear picture of the values ​​on the field at the beginning of this season and which teams have demonstrated better preparation for the new regulations” commented Domenicali. “Today we achieved the objective regarding reliability, but the gap to be recovered was evident, especially on the Mercedes. The information collected this weekend indicates with absolute clarity which is the path to take and where it is necessary to intervene. It will be important to speed up recovery times and react as has always been done in the team we are part of. Our engineers know what the priorities are and the areas in which we need to immediately improve our car" added the Scuderia team principal.

“On the eve of the race, getting both cars to the finish line seemed like the most difficult task, but in the end the objective was achieved” added Pat Fry. “Today we saw how reliability cannot be taken for granted: in addition to surprising several cars, in some phases of the race it limited our performance. On both F14 Ts we suffered some electrical problems, especially on Kimi's, as we were unable to exploit all the power available. Fernando found himself behind Hulkenberg for many laps and the car's potential could only be seen after the overtake which occurred thanks to a good strategy in the pit stop. Kimi made a great start but then for much of the race he suffered from graining on the front tires and found himself forced to defend without the possibility of attacking. Now a lot of work awaits us if we want to improve the car's performance, ahead of us we have very strong rivals but also all the tools to close the gap between us and them."