Ferrari F1 team must not over-react to Hungarian GP result
The Ferrari Formula 1 team must not get over-excited about Fernando Alonso's second place in Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, according to team principal Marco Mattiacci
Alonso scored the Scuderia's best result of the 2014 season by leading for 13 laps and eventually finishing runner-up to Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull at the Hungaroring.
Kimi Raikkonen ensured Ferrari re-passed Williams in the race for third in the constructors' championship by finishing a season's best sixth, but Mattiacci said his team shouldn't be satisfied with these results.
"It's encouraging but at the same time we need to properly weight this second place and this sixth place," Mattiacci said.
"The strengths of the other teams were diluted because of the weather conditions and the specifics of the track.
"It was motivating, but we need to manage carefully the enthusiasm for second and sixth place.
"It doesn't distract us from our trajectory. We are not here to finish in second place."
Mattiacci was pleased to see Raikkonen enjoy his most competitive race since returning to Ferrari, but said the team's focus should be fully on trying to close the raw pace gap to the dominant Mercedes cars.
"I'm happy Kimi's back, he did a fantastic race, and Fernando had a fantastic race," Mattiacci added.
"[But] we are about 1.2 seconds behind the leaders, which means months or even years of work."
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