Domenicali predicts three-way fight for drivers' title

[vcs316]

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali thinks this year's title race will evolve into a three-way battle between Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

The trio are currently split by three points at the top of the standings, but with seven different winners from seven races, form has been very difficult to predict. Nevertheless, Domenicali thinks the battle for the championship is starting to shape up and he suspects the current top three will be the main protagonists.

"I think at the end of the day, looking at the championship, it's going to be a fight between Sebastian Lewis and Fernando. That's what I feel," he said after the Canadian Grand Prix. "Maybe because everyone is thinking one thing before the race and another after, maybe after Valencia it will be different. But honestly I think the championship could evolve into a fight between the first three drivers."

Alonso was leading the championship heading into the Canadian Grand Prix, but after dropping from second to fifth on a one-stop strategy in the race, he lost out on eight potential championship points and slipped to second. Although Ferrari defended its strategy, Domenicali admitted the car was capable of scoring more points.

"Today the race was disappointing for myself because we didn't bring back the points that the car should have brought back," he said. "So this is the bitter pill that we have in Canada today, but on the other side we should be happy that the car is once again competitive and the most important thing is that the championship is completely open. Hamilton is leading but Alonso is second by two points and there are many races to go. The only thing is to keep pushing and put the performance on the car and up to the moment that we are qualifying on pole position we cannot be happy."

After a significant upgrade to the Ferrari in Canada, Domenicali said the next step was to put the car on pole.

"We will bring new updates for Valencia. The first objective is not to fight for pole position as we did here but to be able to take a pole position after such a long time. Of course there will be another evolution but I'm sure the others will do the same so it's a matter to see how the package is performing on the track and that will make the difference."

© ESPN EMEA Ltd.

[ferrari4life]

Seems like Ferrari works better when they have a slow car.. Give them a fast car and then they start to crack under the pressure of making spontaneous decisions.

As soon as we saw the mistake in McLarens pit stop we should have called in Alonso and given him fresh tires to push till the end rather than try and defend when we know that the DRS make a big impact when sorting the tire differential.

Look at Red Bull. They called Vettel in and were able to salvage 4th place. Alonso barely held onto 5th. It was a disappointing Sunday and I cant wait for the next race to see how we manage this. Hope this is our one big mistake for the season and we keep our noses clean from here on.

[stefa]

Soon Ferrari Pit Wall Crew will make that three way battle into two way... :roll

[stefa]

Or they will wait till the last race in the season :-)

[stefa]

Sorry guys... I couldn't resist to comment that... It was stronger than me... :-)
Hopefully that won't happen again, and somehow FA will win WDC, and with help of FM Ferrari will win WCC!

Forza!

[Red passion]

Soon Ferrari Pit Wall Crew will make that three way battle into two way... :roll

:-(

[F1NAC]

o my God .. It was a one stupid decision .. They were gambling and it didn't work .. There are still 13 races to go . Don't panic .Now we have a good car and competitive car and we can fight for the win .

[anakin]

it might be true that it would be vettel-hamilton-alonso showdown. but my money goes to lewis-fernando fight to the end. there will be some instance that webber will take away valuable points from vettel along the way. button and massa somehow have an unlucky season. might switch into a support for the contending team mates.

[epiclyaddicted]

I am with Stefano on this one. I said after Friday practice at Canada that the race on Sunday will be between Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton, and see how that turned out.

As for the title, for some reason I've got a hunch that eventually it will come down to between Alonso and Hamilton, while Vettel will gradually fade away towards the end of the season, not through his own fault, but that RBR won't be able to keep up with developments from McLaren and Ferrari. Just how I predict things shaping out, we'll see what happens. :-)

[sav_pap]

We did it 3 -way fight. Before Canada it was two (Hamster was 13 points off the leader Alo). If we had gone for P2 on Sunday (by pitting for second time Alonso's car) it would be still 2-way fight. At least until next race weekend.

[Greig]

Well now we have to cover Lewis and Seb, wonder how they will manage that one :-) easiest way is to just win the race :-D

[kiwifella]

Well, I've only just managed to calm down after Sunday.............funny how when things go wrong and we dont finish well up I have a tendency to not watch replays, because it hurts so much, but when we win, or do well (2nd or 3rd) I rewatch the race over and over.

I have to say that, at the beginning of the season I moaned about how the car was rubbish at Melbourne, then we go and win at Malaysia, which got my spirits up again. I never really thought from then though that we would end up in contention to win any race all season, given the problems with the car. Must say though, that our lads in red have done a stirling job with the F2012 so far, and I reckon they never thought themselves they would be chasing a win at Canada. All I can say is bravo lads, and to Alonso for giving it a shot, although we could argue until we're blue in the face about strategy, just hope we've learnt our lesson and keep trying to understand the tyres as best we can, we should be at a head start with it by now seeing as we have our tyre technician formerly from Bridgestone? with us, but understand that it is a completely different company providing the tyres (Pirelli).

Perhaps 4th was our best chance even if we did stop, who knows, but I did rather think that with 14 or 15 laps to go when Hamilton stopped, if we pitted too, put on the supersofts, perhaps the 2nd was still within grasp, never mind, we rolled the dice and it didnt go how we planned...........must say, at least the mindset is to take a gamble, it either works or dosent, in recent seasons we wouldnt have done it. I reckon it goes to show perhaps our faith in our machinery is much much more positive than we first thought, all they have to do is keep progressing and discovering the best setups for each weekend. Perhaps a compromise in race pace and tyre saving as opposed to being more aggressive on setup for qualy made all the difference, but at least we tried.

Happy so much we are at least going in the right direction at last :-P