"In that respect, of course we discuss - even this morning - the way to handle the start. The way we did this was to check the starts in previous years, more than just last year, and I think we did a good job on that, and also on the strategy; our choice was really good. We didn't want to stress the tyres with a very heavy fuel load on the car and I think that worked very well."

Domenicali emphasised that BMW Sauber's performances have added a new dimension to the championship . "We have seen that BMW also had a great weekend. We need to respect them and we will for sure they will be in the middle of the field for sure in order to take points from us and from McLaren, so we need to have a lot of respect for them.

"The championship will be harder because they will be taking points from us. As we said at the beginning of the season, the championship this year is very very long and the fact that we will have one more competitor that shows that they are good, for sure is an added element to take into consideration. Today, honestly, we were very strong, we took it very easy in the last part of the race because we wanted to save the car and bring it home because it was so important for us to take the chequered flag."

And the next race in Bahrain, where the team tested in February? "For sure the conditions are very different," said Domenicali. "We tested in February, now it's April, the temperatures are different but we did a good test there and let's hope that it will bring some positive result being there in February."

E.A. © CAPSIS International
Source: Ferrari