Ferrari: More than four may be in title hunt

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali believes that such was the competitiveness of pre-season testing that more than the recognised big four teams could be in the fight at the front of the field.

Although the huge fuel-load variances seen during testing this year have made predictions ahead of the first race of the season in Bahrain more difficult than usual, the general consensus has been that McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari are ahead of the rest of the field.

But with Sauber, Williams and Force India also having shown flashes of impressive speed, Domenicali thinks Formula 1 could be about to witness an incredibly open season.

“I’m not used to making forecasts, but it’s clear that it will be a very balanced championship, not like last year,” he said.

"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.”

Domenicali reckons that with the leading cars set to prove so close on pace,  Ferrari will have to maximise its car’s performance at all times in order to ensure it achieves its ambitions of fighting for wins.

“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, car,” he added.

“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!”

Nevertheless the Italian is confident that Ferrari’s new F10 is good enough to figure in the leading pack after displaying impressive qualifying and long-run pace – although he says it can’t afford to wrest on its laurels and must continue to develop the car.

“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,” he said.

“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.”