Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali says Red Bull’s RB8 is the leading car – Formula 1 news
Ferrari team Principal Stefano Domenicali believes that Red Bull is now the car to beat as the defending Champions have shown impressive speed in the recently concluded Valencia GP.
McLaren was considered to be the leading team and the team to beat earlier in the season but recent performances.
Domenicali said that Red Bull has a clear advantage over other cars and he has called on his team and engineers to bridge the gap to the RB8.
During the Valencia GP Sebastian Vettel claimed pole position in the qualifiers. The race saw the German take his RB8 into the lead right from the start.
Vettel was so fast that at one stage of the race he was in a 20 second lead of the second place. Vettel was cruising when suddenly found out that the car was not responding and the engine had halted.
“The Red Bull that we have seen this weekend is for sure the quickest in terms of performance,” he said. “In the race it was able to keep the pace and be very strong so that is something we need to keep in mind. We know that our target [the championship]
is at the end of November, but we also know that they did something very good this weekend. Yes, they had a problem with reliability, but we are not really at the level that we should be in terms of true performance. But we are leading the championship and
that's something that will be very helpful for the people [at Maranello] to allow them to keep working with more ability and ideas.”
He admitted that the team will need to work hard and not get ahead of themselves. The car is much better than the team had at the start of the season but there is still a lot of work to be done. The team is going in the right direction and even in a pressure
situation they have responded well.
Fernando Alonso is the first driver to be a repeat winner in the season and is leading the drivers table followed by Lewis Hamilton and Vettel.
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