Ferrari hopes hard tyre is altered

Both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa struggled for grip with the revised hard tyre - and the difficulties were highlighted when Alonso effectively lost a lap to the race leaders when he made the switch to primes in Barcelona.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if the tyre troubles were something that Ferrari had to sort out itself, or something that Pirelli needed to react to, team principal Stefano Domenicali said: "At least you cannot say that Pirelli is working for Ferrari... there were doubts at the beginning, that the company would make sure that the tyres for the team would be perfect!

"Now, apart from that, we need to see what will be the future. We need to work very closely with them, to see if this is the right one that we should have."

Although Ferrari concedes that a lack of downforce on its car is hampering its challenge against Red Bull Racing and Ferrari, Domenicali is not sure that explains the full picture of his team's competitiveness.

"We need to be very cautious," he said. "We have seen so many different things happen in the first couple of races since the beginning, and it is difficult to make a judgement at the moment.

"What we saw in Spain were conditions that needed to have maximum downforce, and we don't have it! We have to multiply the fact that with the hard tyre we were not able to make it work. Remember Fernando was leading for 18 laps - so in 46 laps we were lapped - losing around three seconds per lap. That is difficult to explain.

"I have to say that this was the worst race for us since the beginning in terms of race pace. The last couple of races we were quick, and it is a shame. But we have seen that things are so changeable this year, and maybe the tyre aspect has made a big difference.

"So we need to be cautious. We need to see where we will be in the next couple of grands prix, as we will have different tyres, which are much softer, and different configuration of cars. Then we will see where we are in the championship, because we will not give up."

He added: "The nature of the people in Maranello has to be that they need to push and, if we still see a light, we need to work hard. We want to see if we can keep it alive as long as possible, so we still believe."