For Ferrari, Canada was a tale of two races

Ferrari’s two drivers are leaving Montreal in very different moods.

For Fernando Alonso, his third-place finish is summed up as: “Nice to be back on the podium, shame about the traffic.” For Felipe Massa, his 15th finish was: “A horrible race.”

That’s how the Ferrari site is having it. And it seems just about right.

Here’s Alonso’s statement:

“It’s great to be back on the podium and especially to be able to fight for the top places once again. Today, we could have won but we did not manage it because, on a few occasions, we paid a heavy price for the traffic. These things can happen to anyone in a race and this time it was our turn. If we want to reach our objective, we must try and always finish on the podium and this result is a great motivation for a team that today did a great job, in terms of strategy and handling the pit stops. It was difficult to manage the tyres: the softs at the start suffered from degradation very quickly, but even the hard ones had a different problem with graining. Luckily, our car is reasonably kind to the tyres. From what we had seen in Turkey, we had not really expected to have this level of performance. Now we have a lot of updates coming for the next Grand Prix in Valencia: I really hope they will allow us to be competitive on all types of track. I have never finished on the podium in my second home race, after the one in Barcelona and I would love to do that in two weeks time.”

Massa’s:

“This was a horrible race, in which everything happened to me. At the first corner, I had an accident that put me out of the game in terms of fighting for a top place finish. I got a very good start, but I found myself sandwiched between Button and Liuzzi, who touched me and you all saw how it ended up. A shame, but these things happen. The car was very good today, as is usually the case in the races when compared to qualifying. After that, I was always in a lot of traffic and when I had at least managed to get back into the points, there was another collision, this time with Michael and that put an end to even that slight chance of points. I expect to do better in Valencia because there will be updates on the F10 and I hope to be in the fight for the top places.”

Finally, here’s Stefano Domenicali on Canada:

“This result is very regrettable as it does not match up to the potential we had shown this weekend. Fernando, who drove a great race, could have won, but a few incidents did not work in his favour: these things can happen in racing, but that does not make it any less disappointing. Felipe seems to be particularly unlucky here in Montreal, given that something always happens : it doesn’t happen often that a driver has to change his nose twice because of incidents that were not his fault. A shame, as he too showed the car’s potential. Indeed, that is the most comforting aspect of this weekend in that we are back fighting for the top places. The fact we came here with a car virtually identical to the one we had in Turkey where we were definitely not competitive, is cause for thought: it only takes a few elements – circuit characteristics, tyres – to change the picture. Now we must push as hard as possible on the development of the F10: in Valencia in a fortnight’s time, we will have some significant updates, but then we must continue to improve the car to be in the fight right to the end. The Drivers’ championship is very open and if the Constructors’ one looks a bit trickier, the situation can change really quickly.”

Ferrari sure is pinning a ton on these “updates” for Valencia, a race that will, of course, be crowded with not only the usual Ferrari fans but Alonso’s country people. It definitely is a race the team needs to do well at; we’ll see whether they come through.