Ferrari vow to bounce back in Bahrain

The Maranello-based squad arrived in Sepang as main favourites to win after a dominant performance by Kimi Raikkonen in the season-opening race in Australia.

Although Felipe Massa started from pole position today, the team endured a disappointing Grand Prix, with the Brazilian dropping down to fifth and Raikkonen going on to finish in third place behind the two McLarens of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari team boss Jean Todt said today's result showed the team were not so far ahead as suggested after Australia, but the Frenchman is optimistic the Italian squad will be able to bounce back in Bahrain next Sunday.

"I think we will be competitive. Three weeks earlier we were going to be unbeatable. We said it's not like that. Now it seems that it's completely finished. It's not completely like that," said Todt after the race.

"We have a car so I think we should be able to in Bahrain hopefully do a better start."

Although both Massa and Raikkonen were hindered by their poor starts, where they were overtaken by the McLarens, Todt admitted the British squad deserve the result they achieved.

McLaren's win was their first in over a year.

"Definitely we are disappointed because after qualifying I think one car first, and third, we were expecting a better result and everybody could see that the race got compromised at the start, where Felipe did not do the best start he could have expected and the McLarens, two of them passed Felipe, one of them Kimi," added Todt.

"Then you could all see an attempt to pass Hamilton and Felipe went wide and he got passed by two cars and then we couldn't manage to gain positions we know that we were facing very strong teams, which we know and simply, today, they were better and they deserve their success.

"Nothing to say. Next week, we will try to do a better job."

Todt also played down the engine problems suffered by Raikkonen, who said his pace had been compromised by a power unit not working at 100 per cent.

The Frenchman said Raikkonen was losing just around one tenth of a second per lap.

"You all know that we had a concern because of the water leak in Australia so we did not see any evidence to change the engine, but we thought it was wiser to take that into consideration and not to get the utmost of the engine but we are talking about one tenth a lap."