Ferrari: qualifying pace key to success

The performance difference between Ferrari's F2007 and McLaren's MP4-22 has been minimal this season, making overtaking difficult, and every race has been won by the man leading out of the first corner.

With the Monaco Grand Prix next up on the calendar, that trend is likely to continue for now, which means that more and more emphasis needs to be put on qualifying performance.

Ferrari's head of track operations Luca Baldisserri is adamant that even though his team have proved better in races, especially with tyre strategies in the middle stints, their edge is not enough to ensure victory each time.

"We saw in qualifying that the cars are all quite close to each other," he was quoted as saying by Gazzetta dello Sport. "While we have an advantage in race pace, Felipe's pace on Sunday was exceptional.

"McLaren performed less than us mid race, but if we had found ourselves behind them we might have had some problems. The situation is such that whoever is ahead at the first turn has good chances of staying there until the end."

The focus on qualifying pace comes with Ferrari having struggled in recent years to get the best single-lap pace from their car at Monaco. That is why they will focus a lot on trying to resolve their previous issues in this week's test at Paul Ricard in France.

"Ferrari haven't had the right car for a circuit like Monte Carlo for many years, and in fact we haven't won there since 2001," added Baldisserri.

"Well, in these days of testing we'll work on the F2007 in order to adapt it to that track. At Le Castellet you can have various types of circuits, so there will be one with characteristics that allow us to simulate the Monaco GP."

And Baldisserri admits that some of his team's big push speed could have been a factor in the reliability problems that have hit them in the early part of the season.

"I must also add that until now we have looked for more aggressive solutions that have perhaps taken away some reliability, of which we can't be satisfied. But we are already correcting that so let's hope that what happened to Raikkonen in Spain won't happen again."