02/03/2010
NEWS STORY
"That's it with the exhibition games, now we're getting serious," declare Stefano Domenicali, referring to the end of pre-season testing and the forthcoming battle for the 2010 world championship proper.
After fifteen days of pre-season testing - at least on track - the teams are now less than two weeks away from the opening round of what promises to be an epic season. Beginning in Bahrain, we will finally get to see who's hot and who's not as the uncertainty of testing gives way to the reality of the race.
"We're satisfied with the work done in these four test sessions, especially because we completed the programme we had set up," says Domenicali. "First of all it was important to get to a good level regarding reliability and I think that we can say that we've reached our goal.
"Although we have to stay really concentrated and improve wherever we can," he continued. "We have to say that the team has done some really good work during the winter to get ready the best possible way for those 15 days of testing. With such a limited time for testing losing only a couple of hours due to a technical problem is a real pity."
Looking ahead to a 19-race season that will take us through to mid-November, Domenicali is confident, buoyed by the performance of the F10 over these last four weeks. "What we could see and considering all the unknown factors in the testing I think that we've shown that we can be competitive and are part of the top group in terms of pure performance and also on the long run. This is an important result considering how we ended the last season just a little more than four months ago in Abu Dhabi; we've worked a lot over the last months. Now we have to continue with the F10's development, because this will be the key to this season.
"I'm not used to make forecasts, but it's clear that it will be a very balanced Championship, not like last year," he added. "Before the tests we thought that there might be four teams able to fight for the title. But what we've seen so far there might be even more. Furthermore there are still some questions to be solved, such as the tyres' behaviour at high temperatures and the race strategy management. Just to name a few.
"With the performances so close together a slight mistake will be enough not to enter Q3, which means that we have to give it our all, all the time: team, drivers and car. We know that we're fighting against very strong teams from a very different season, who have worked very hard during the winter and who want to win. We're ready for the challenge ahead!"