Ferrari's F1 2013 start only a six out of 10, says chief designer

The Maranello squad has enjoyed a stronger start to the campaign compared to last year, when it was hindered by a car that failed to deliver the expected performance.

Ferrari has scored 77 points so far, compared to 45 at this point last year.

Tombazis admits the first four races of the season have left the team positive about its chances of staying in the title fight all year long, but he concedes there is still room to improve.

"I think in general, the first results mean we can be reasonably optimistic about the rest of the season, with a sense that we can fight for wins and the championship," said Tombazis.

"However, if I was to score our overall performance, I would only give it a six out of 10 and that's for two main reasons.

"One is that we are not yet quite where we want to be. In the first four grands prix, we were not really able to fight for pole position and that is one of our main objectives at the moment.

"Secondly, if you look at the actual results, even if it's true we've had a win, which naturally we can be very pleased about, we have also had two very bad results where we scored very few points.

"However, I reiterate that overall we can be optimistic for the future."

Tombazis said Ferrari will introduce several updates to the bodywork, floor and wings in this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

He acknowledged the biggest challenge will be to judge the performance of each part before deciding what stays on the car.

"I believe most of our competitors will have a significant number of updates in Spain, which is not surprising, as there was a reasonably long gap after the first four races," he added.

"With any new component, the difficulty lies not so much in its development but in deciding whether or not it is working on track as well as we had hoped.

"Therefore, by Friday evening in Barcelona, our objective is to have a clear view on what we will take forward to use in the race, in the hope of seeing measurements taken from the wind tunnel confirmed on track."