Luca di Montezemolo: "'The hopeful' is keeping her...hopes"

The president of Ferrari, Luca di Montezemolo, is satisfied and, in the aftermath of the first Grand Prix of the 2013 season, declared to Ferrari.com: “'The hopeful' is maintaining...the hopes. We did what we expected, we ran a good race especially against Red Bull and Vettel in particular, who I consider our strongest opponent. The podium was our goal and we achieved it, starting the championship in a certainly positive way, which is psychologically good for our entire team: the mechanics, the technicians, the drivers. It was important to start well, which hadn't happened in the last two years.”

Beyond the performance of the car, which is the most important thing, Montezemolo sees in the start, in the pit stops and in the race strategy three aspects that worked very well yesterday and which will be fundamental throughout the season, although "we have to further develop the single-seater, we know we don't have the fastest car but we have a lot of irons in the fire. Developing a well-made machine is certainly an easier task."

Finally, the Ferrari president talks about the drivers: “I am satisfied with the behavior of Felipe Massa, very fast in qualifying and author of a beautiful race. Very good Fernando Alonso who I saw motivated and happy to have found confirmation of the first good results of the tests on the track. Now, with our feet on the ground, there is a lot of work to do."