Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali is refusing to dismiss McLaren as a rival for this year's world championship titles despite the Woking outfit's poor showing in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
McLaren left the Sakhir circuit with just four points for Heikki Kovalainen's fifth place after being beaten by both the Scuderia and the emerging BMW Sauber threat, but Domenicali, perhaps wary of Ferrari's own nightmare in Melbourne, insists that the Prancing Horse would not be writing anyone off just yet.
"Right now, I have to say that we expect [our toughest opposition] to be both McLaren and BMW, because we must not over-react to anything," he pointed out, "As always, from the pragmatic point of view, we need to consider the points, [which] show that BMW is in front of us in the constructors' championship and, in the drivers' championship, they are behind Kimi. They are all there, but I am expecting McLaren to be back on the pace again very soon.
"As I've always said, I was expecting a tough championship this year, including BMW, which had already shown, during testing, that it was better than last year. I always said that and this confirms what I always thought - that it would be a very long championship. It is a classification than is closer to soccer than an F1 season, and we are three teams covered by two points.
"That shows that we cannot lose one vital step because the others can take more important points, so it will be important to keep up the pace of reliability. We must not forget that we have to keep on developing our car to the maximum, because the others will not sleep, they will be back again very strongly in Spain. I'm expecting McLaren to be back again and up to standard in Barcelona. What we have to do is work very hard and keep our feet on the ground, concentrate. That's the way we are used to doing it - reply on the track."
That reply will begin at the forthcoming group test at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, where Ferrari will introduce the developments planned for the first European leg of the season.
"We need to keep up the pace in terms of reliability and performance," Domenicali reiterated, "That's the reason why we want to bring something new to every race. Even if it's small, it's important, because I'm not expecting the others to sleep. I'm pretty sure they are flat out, trying to do what they can, because the championship is open. We are still in only the first part, Spain is only the fourth race, so it's very very long."
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