Todt says nothing is lost yet

Ferrari boss Jean Todt says it's still all to play for in this year's championship despite the disappointment of the European Grand Prix

The Italian squad, winners of the last two races, started from pole and led for most of the race at the Nurburgring, but a mechanical problem and a change in the weather conditions meant victory went to McLaren's Fernando Alonso.

Finn Kimi Raikkonen, looking for his first hat-trick of wins, retired from third place due to a hydraulic problem, leaving Germany still 18 points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton.

Teammate Felipe Massa looked set for victory until a downpour with less than 10 laps to go forced all drivers to pit. In the wet conditions Massa struggled and could do nothing to stop Alonso from overtaking, having to settle for second.

Massa, however, closed the gap to Hamilton, who failed to score, to 11 points.

Despite the setback, Todt reckons even Raikkonen is still in contention.

"There are still seven races to go. You saw today that Hamilton did not score points, so immediately you can see the difference," said Todt.

"He (Raikkonen) is 18 points behind the leader and there are seven races to go and we have the potential to win every race, so if we are able to do a good job, it's still possible.

"I don't think it changes anything. I don't think we can say that we have made an easy approach to all the races since the beginning of the championship.

"So we will keep trying to do the same job, we will try to improve the performance of the car and of course, try to resolve reliability problems when we know where to put the effort.

"As I said before, we have to analyse what has happened. It was a hydraulic problem on Kimi's car and it stopped the car. It's definitely unfortunate but it's our responsibility. We think that we had this kind of problem during free practice in Magny Cours."

To add insult to Ferrari's injury, Michael Schumacher was the man in charge of handing McLaren boss Ron Dennis the trophy for the winning constructor.

"Honestly, I would have preferred that he gave it to a Ferrari team member, but he was asked by the organisers to give the trophy to the winning manufacturer so he did so," said Todt.

" But my heart had more pain when Kimi stopped because of a hydraulic problem and when Felipe lost the lead after a fantastic race a few laps before the end."