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Despite a nearly anonymous Monaco for the great Italian marque, Maurizio Arrivabene insists the world championship is still within Ferrari's grasp. However, after a poor weekend in Spain, the red cars were once again behind not just Mercedes but also a resurgent Red Bull and even Sergio Perez's Force India on the streets of Monaco.
But boss Arrivabene denied that Ferrari is increasingly weak in 2016. "Only once have we not been on the podium, which is here," he said late on Sunday. "I don't want to go back over all the races, but we all know where and why we lost a lot of points and perhaps the chance of victory," the Italian added. "At the same time I do not want to give excuses. In Barcelona, we were just not good enough in Q3, and this was repeated here and we paid for it again in the race."
Arrivabene said Ferrari's problem is not some sort of 'crisis' but a matter of working on the setup so the car is always in Pirelli's delicate tyre-operation "window". So when asked if the world championship is slowly slipping away, he insisted: "No! My responsibilities are to keep the team concentrated and focused as there are still 15 races to go which is plenty of time. But we need to find the reasons for the problem in the final qualifying session."
Finally, Arrivabene defended Kimi Raikkonen at the end of a bad weekend for the Finn, whose contract is up for renewal at the end of the season. "Each driver has tracks he does not like, and Kimi does not like Monaco even if he has won here. I see no reason why I should complain about Kimi -- on other tracks he is driving as good as before," he added. (GMM)
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
65 members have this team as their favourite
Replies (6)
Login to replymclarenfan1968
Posts: 1,027
I am afraid it already has, the Ferrari car probably could have won the race in Monaco with the superior strategy they chose but they didn't have one crucial thing. TRACK POSITION. Butthurt boy won it easy without being consistently quicker than raging RBR of Ricciardo because he had track position and morons at RBR played around like noobs. It is so important to qualify upfront to maximize your chances which Ricciardo did. Especially on a track where overtaking it very difficult with out like a 2-3 second differential.
So many chances wasted away, Ferrari doesn't even deserve to win the constructors title just for being that daft. Vettel though deserves to have won atleast 3 races by now a true shame.
Canada will see Ferrari return as the closest challenger to Merc but they wont win it, it will be one of two things, bad qualifying due to high track temps or a pathetic strategy call.
Vet5
Posts: 225
I've lost all sympathy for Ferrari, every Monday after the GP they always state the championship is not lost. There is still a marginal gap between Mercedes and Ferrari, High speed tracks = Mercedes, High Downforce Tracks = Redbull. I don't see Ferrari winning this year at all unless they make some changes to the chassis. Surely though RedBull will be in the mix now due to the engine upgrade Renault released. Got to agree though, Verstappen drove with no confidence at all over the weekend with a car that in my mind has the best chassis on the grid.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
They could win, if Mercedes crash out one or two more times like they did in Spain, if Mercedes retire from enough races, if Ferrari get a power boost or chassis improvement or something, if reliability improves for Ferrari, if they luck out on high speed tracks and hold their own against Red Bull on the low speed ones. But thats plenty of 'ifs', and Im not sure they'll get enough of those for a title to be possible.
Hepp
Posts: 200
This year, my home race ... Ros, Ric, Rai, Ham, Vet, for pole.... Trifecta is Ves, Rai, Ric.
Hepp
Posts: 200
I am Canadian ... Who gets to keep changing my profile here?
mcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
If Ferrari wins 2016, it could be much bigger surprise than Brawn GP winning 2009.