Todt laments lack of reliability in 2007

Brazilian Felipe Massa mathematically dropped out of contention at last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix while teammate Kimi Raikkonen will need a miracle to be champion this year.

The Finn is 17 points behind Lewis Hamilton with only two races remaining.

Raikkonen has suffered two retirements through mechanical reasons, and while Massa has only one retirement, the Brazilian has been hit by reliability issues during qualifying too.

Hamilton has finished all races and teammate Fernando Alonso, second in the championship, suffered his first retirement of the year when he crashed out of the Fuji race last Sunday.

"If we won't bring back to Maranello - together with the constructors' title - also the drivers' title, it is, because we didn't have enough reliability," Todt told Ferrarriworld.com.

"It's enough to have a look at the championship: we lost some very important points - and I'm thinking about the problems Felipe had in Australia, Great Britain and Italy and the ones Kimi had at Barcelona and at the Nurburgring. With these points we would be really close to the actual leader in the championship.

"We have two very good drivers, who have demonstrated that they can work together and know that the concerns of the team come first when it is necessary. This will always remain a positive season, although there were some moments, when we really suffered and which did no good to Formula One.

"In the first year with a new organization of the team, when many expected us to be in decline, we gained 170 points, seven wins and eight pole positions so far and last but not least we could win the constructors' title for the 15th time in our history, the seventh in the last nine years."

Todt reiterated he was disappointed by the tyre confusion that hindered their Japanese race, and he reckons the team could have won the race had it not been for that.

"We had the potential to win and to catch up further in the drivers' championship. But now Felipe has dropped out arithmetically and Kimi needs a miracle to become world champion," the Frenchman added.

"I'm very disappointed about the way of communication of the important instructions from the stewards right before the race. They should have done better.

"Apart from the fact that the procedure has not been formally observed, there is also the regret that certain actions have not been implemented by the ones, who for example had to underline the fact that we had to use rain tyres, while on the monitors the message about the fact that we had to start behind the safety car was transmitted.

"But also the FIA personnel could have verified on the grid, that all the teams had received the communication. It's true that the press release by the Federation on Sunday evening acknowledged the procedural mistake, but by then the damage was already done."