Ferrari: Victory before break is vital

After winning the season opener in Bahrain, Ferrari has slipped behind McLaren and Red Bull. Although it was more competitive in Canada and Valencia, it was unable to turn that pace into anything more than a third for Fernando Alonso in Montreal.

That has left Ferrari third in the constructors' championship, 83 points behind leader McLaren, while Alonso is fifth in the drivers' title chase, 29 points down on Lewis Hamilton.

The British, German and Hungarian Grands Prix now take place in quick succession before the three-week August gap, so this next stretch is seen as vital to the title fight.

When asked during an interview for Ferrari's website how important it was to win one of the next three races, Domenicali replied: "For sure it would be very important. It would be crucial for the championships, for motivation, and I think that is really the key before the summer break, to have the kind of result that I think our team deserves."

Ferrari introduced its blown diffuser for Valencia, and Domenicali said more updates would be introduced at each of the next three races - though the Silverstone package would be a relatively small one.

"We believe that the rate of development will be the key to this year," he said. "We did quite a reasonable step in Valencia, and we'll do another one, maybe smaller for sure, at Silverstone. We're speaking about the front and rear wings.

"Then in Germany, a new package, in Hungary, a new package, and then we will see."

The Italian squad was seething after its cars dropped from third and fourth to the midfield when trapped behind the safety car in Valencia as others pitted, while many drivers penalised for safety car infringements finished ahead. Domenicali added that Ferrari now wanted to erase memories of that frustration with a good result at Silverstone.

"As always after a difficult grand prix like we had in Valencia, the atmosphere here in Maranello is good," he said. "The will is for all the team to go to this fantastic track and start a new racing weekend.

"We know that unfortunately the last two races we didn't get the results that we wanted. The performance was there, but the result was not there. Even if we know that traditionally Silverstone is not a track where we perform very well, we're really looking forward to going there and seeing what the outcome will be."