Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo expresses concerns over RB8’s pace – Formula 1 news
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has expressed his worries to his team over the pace of the Red Bull car displayed at the European Grand Prix.
During the Valencia race, it was clear that Red Bull was ahead of all the other cars on the grid.
Sebastian Vettel was impressive in the qualifiers hitting pole position but he was unmatched during the race. At one point Vettel was so much in the driving seat of the race that he had a 20 second lead over the second placed driver.
The safety car took away the advantage Vettel had over other cars, but after the safety car period was over he was back in the lead. The defending champion did not look anywhere close to be in the same league as others and only a failure of the engine caused
his defeat.
Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso went on to win the race becoming the first driver to become a repeat winner in the season. He is 20 points ahead in leading the drivers table but di Montezemolo is looking beyond the strong position Ferrari finds itself in
and says that the RB8’s pace should not be underestimated and the team will have to work hard to match up to it in the coming races.
“I am worried and all of us should be,” Montezemolo said. “Yes, I am worried, because I expect three very tough races at Silverstone, Hockenheim and Budapest and because we have seen that Red Bull is very strong, having had four tenths in hand over everyone
in qualifying and in the race it was flying away, at least until the safety car. If we want to achieve our goals then we must make a step forward.”
Montezemolo praised the efforts of the team and said that he is happy with the way things are going but he still grows wary of the threat Red Bull pose for the future races and emphasised that that threat needs to be pre-empted before it is too late.
The season has been very competitive and it would be unwise to ease up at this stage of the season.
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