Disappointed but ready to recover - Domenicali

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said that Felipe Massa's strong performance in Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix was probably his best race ever - even if it ended in a late retirement. But he underlined that the team would stand shoulder-to-shoulder to recover from the disappointment and to find a cure to the team's recent performance.

"I have to say that we are very sad for Felipe," said Domenicali, "because in my view he drove the best race of his career today. It was fantastic the way that he attacked when he had to attack, and he managed the race right up to the final laps, so we are very disappointed.

"I think that he's very strong," continued Domenicali. "If you are mentally able to manage this kind of race, after such a big disappointment you have you take a step forward, because you get stronger. This is what we are all going to do together, because that's the way we are going to approach the next race in Valencia."

Domenicali revealed that the team had prepared Massa for his lightning start which saw him overtake both McLarens and take the lead out of the first corner, because it was crucial when it came to when the McLarens might make their first pit stops.

"We prepared the race last night considering that. We knew that in these conditions, the two effects were relevant. We tried to simulate the start in terms of lines because we knew that if we were in front we could set a good pace for the first stint of the race. We were building and informing Felipe of the gap behind him to Hamilton just to create our race, expecting him to be, I would say, in the region of our pit stop, maybe one two laps more, one two laps less. So we were working around that strategy, we were building up our lead, considering that situation. But to be honest, you never know how it's going to work out up to the moment that you stop."

Domenicali revealed that they had no warning of Felipe Massa's engine failure as he completed lap 67. "Zero. Unfortunately we had no warning, we just had the smoke in front of us, and it was very bad. Unfortunately there was no signal, no information, no warning on the telemetry."

It was coincidental that Kimi Raikkonen, now third, appeared to have a problem at the same time. "At the end, we told him to take it easy because we felt that we had a mechanical problem at the rear of the car so we didn't want to take any risks. We wanted him to bring the car home after what we saw unfortunately with Felipe on the same lap."

Did it have any bearing on Felipe's problem? "No, no, no. Completely different," emphasised Domenicali. "We saw there was something on the mechanical side on the rear that was not properly working."

So going into the next race, the European Grand Prix at Valencia, what is Ferrari's focus: the reliability problems experienced in Budapest, or the qualifying problems experienced by Kimi Raikkonen in particular?

"I think both," said Domenicali. "Not only these two points but for sure reliability because we cannot accept to have these kind of problems, even if it was only 10 kilometers from the end. We cannot have this problem of reliability because we are paying too much of a price for it.

"And on the other hand, qualifying is crucial and the difference today was really the fact that on one side (Massa) we were able to jump in front and do our own race as we were able to do, and on the hand (Raikkonen), spending the first part (of the race) in the middle of the field, knowing that it was really impossible to do something, in spite of having the right pace."

Valencia could also throw up problems in terms of similar temperatures to those seen in Hungary. "What we need to improve, looking ahead to the next Grand Prix, is our situation in tricky conditions which may be in terms of temperature, in terms of situation, weather, something like that. For sure we maybe need to prepare our cars and tyre set-up in a different way because we saw what we suffered, for example, in Germany."

The team now has 19 days until the European Grand Prix to be held on the streets of Valencia, Spain.