Ferrari won't rush team orders decision

Massa's inherited victory in the Belgian Grand Prix, allied to Lewis Hamilton's demotion to third for cutting a chicane, has left the Brazilian just two points adrift of his McLaren rival in the title standings - but more importantly 17 ahead of Raikkonen.

And with Ferrari well aware that giving Raikkonen free reign to take points off Massa in the title chase could prove costly judging by how tight the fight is with McLaren, the Maranello-based team have admitted that if they believe the time is right to impose 'team orders' they will.

However, Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali has made it clear that no decision has been made yet about making Massa their number one - and the team felt under no pressure to do so just yet.

"We will take the decision in the team interests," he said at Spa-Francorchamps. "In my view, the situation that we have now is something that we need to think about with no rush because it's something that is part of our approach to the races.

"If we feel that it's the right time we are going to do it. But let's take this Sunday, with so many events that we take back home, (and) prepare for Monza in the right way. This is the main target that we need to be focused on in the next few days."

Although Ferrari's current straightline performance will make them well placed for a good showing at Monza next week, the difficulties the F2008 has in dealing with kerbs could prove a problem.

"Well, as we said, Monza for us is not really the ideal track also because we are expecting not really high temperatures," said Domenicali. "So the only thing we can do is really to try to work very, very hard, because we know that McLaren is very, very strong above all in Monza, but not only there as we can see.

"Yesterday we were very impressed by their performance in qualifying. To be honest, that shows how tense the championship is, how it will be close to the end. We know that they are very strong, and we cannot give up for a second.

"Today, there was another lesson. You really need to wait, we always said that but today was really clear: you have to wait not only to the end of the race but also afterwards.

"That shows that really the situation is very complicated. We will push and work hard because we respect and we know that our competitors are very, very strong."