Maranello, 28 July

Scuderia Ferrari got back to Maranello from Hungary in high spirits, after securing its best result of the season so far, with Fernando Alonso finishing second and Kimi Raikkonen, who finished sixth, despite a rather dismal Saturday. Both men delivered performances worthy of their world champion status and the team made brave and well executed decisions when it came to sorting out the strategy for the two F14 Ts. The result was a valuable morale booster, coming as it did prior to the summer break. However, no one is under any illusion that there isn’t still a lot to do before the team can compete with those at the front.
Progress and realism. It’s true however that progress has been made on the car, as could be seen on the twisty Hungaroring, a track where good traction is essential, with Fernando and Kimi setting the fastest pace in the middle stint. Work continues today as ever in Maranello and Team Principal Marco Mattiacci met President Luca di Montezemolo, to go over the current situation after the Budapest race, looking ahead to the coming rounds. The Scuderia is still working on both short and mid-term development, with the engineers and mechanics preparing for the races at Spa and Monza, which on paper at least look like being tough for the F14 T, while work also continues on the longer term aim of matching its main rivals, looking at developing every area of the car.
A busy time. The last week of work prior to the compulsory summer break will be particularly busy for Marco Mattiacci, as he tackles a series of meetings away from the factory. The Team Principal will be taking part in the summit meeting arranged by Bernie Ecclestone for Thursday, a meeting also called for by the Ferrari President to look at the general situation of Formula 1 and how to increase the sport’s appeal. After that, there are meetings with some suppliers to move forward with the ideas Mattiacci expressed when he took on this role, of instilling a sense of responsibility in everyone involved in producing the race cars. It’s not simply a case of asking for greater effort, but also to see a better pooling of ideas to speed up the evolution of the entire car package, as well as putting forward recommendations for the 2015 car.