Title Hopes Dimming, Todt Admits

Ferrari team boss Jean Todt admits that the math is getting more complicated for his drivers in terms of the World Championship, as the Ferrari drivers are now 21 and 20 points behind Lewis Hamilton. However, he insists that the team has not given up on its title aspirations.

“Yes, it’s complicated,” he said. “I’m always worried and of course, I would prefer to have both drivers with 20 points ahead. Saying that, you know that makes a very intense and interesting challenge, if we are able to be on the podium with both drivers, both cars, for the six remaining grands prix of the season, which is possible, I still think that we have a chance to achieve what we want.”

Todt admitted that he was particularly frustrated at the way Felipe Massa could not make much progress from 14th on the grid in Hungary.

“I don’t want to say it was a good feeling, because I’m not very happy about the result today. You cannot always pretend that you’re not happy if you don’t win, even if what you always aim for is trying to win a race. But it was very disappointing to see Felipe behind cars which… again, I respect the cars, I respect the drivers, but they are not in the same league at the moment and he could not pass them.

“Due to his starting position, we put the car full of fuel, having to guess, but it’s never good in this business if you start to guess. It didn’t work properly for him. For Kimi it was much better. We had a competitive car but we did not do the best job for reasons we need to understand in qualifying and we paid the price. It’s not pleasing but you have to accept it.

“I’m not happy about that but the same people have been winning a lot of races, a lot of championships and mistakes remain human, so that’s it. We have to try to understand why we did not have a good procedure to avoid that and hopefully make sure that it won’t happen again.”

Todt also admitted that he was looking forward to stating Ferrari’s case when the FIA’s Court of Appeal delves into the spy story.

“We were not happy…we have been writing about that officially, about what Ferrari does feel after the decision of the World Council, because for us, if you are guilty, you must be penalised and very important thing is that our competitor was judged guilty and that’s why the national automobile club of Italy asked the president of the FIA to reconsider which the president accepted.

“We will have the opportunity of presenting the case – hopefully properly, clearly – and it’s up to the international Court of appeal to make the decision. Of course we will accept the decisions, but we feel that what happened was simply unacceptable, so we don’t accept it.”