Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali has assured fans that the team will ‘react immediately’ to its poor pace, having been unable to match Red Bull and McLaren at the season opener.
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa finished fourth and seventh respectively, the latter of which gained two places after the stewards’ disqualified both Sauber drivers for a technical infringement.
The team had expected to be on the leading pace, but the Italian outfit left Australia disappointed.
“There is no point in denying that we leave Australia with a sense of disappointment,” Domenicali said.
“Our performance level was not a match for that of the best, especially one of the Red Bulls,” he said in reaction to Sebastian Vettel’s pole time which was almost a second quicker than his team-mate, Mark Webber.
“Now we will have to study everything carefully to work out what prevented us from being as competitive as we had expected this weekend.
“We will have to react immediately, starting with the next race in Malaysia.”
He highlighted front-downforce as an area in need of much improvement, likely in response to the F150º’s inability to heat its front tyres as effectively as their competitiors.
“One of the main themes is the level of downforce at the front: we must find out why we did not get on track what was predicted by the data. One of the few bright points was reliability, especially on the engine side and with the KERS.”
