Todt: There is Room for Improvement

Ferrari chief Jean Todt has called for his team to do better in 2005 after seeing them miss out on a record-breaking 16th win of the season in the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Todt, a perfectionist who has taken Ferrari from no-hopers to six-time World Champions since taking the helm, has seen the team improve on their record-breaking 2002 season with an even more dominant performance this year.

But he said: "This year is a great achievement for Ferrari but we scored 82 percent out of the possible points to score, out of 324, so it's 18 per cent (missed) and if I am a bit cynical that can be improved on!"

The Italian team have been at the top of the sport for six years and they embarrassed their rivals with an utterly dominant display in 2002 that at the time looked unlikely to ever be repeated.

But this season has been even better and Todt added: "For the sixth time in a row Ferrari has won the manufacturers championship and Michael (Schumacher) has won the drivers' championship for the fifth time in a row.

"We scored 262 points with 15 wins, nine second positions and eight first and seconds. But we have a lot of respect for our competitors and we lost three races, every time against a different team."

Ferrari, who have the biggest budget in the sport, won this year’s title with five races still to run when German driver Schumacher completed a run of 12 wins in 13 races at the Hungarian Grand Prix in August.

Schumacher won his fifth title in a row at the following race in Belgium and his Brazilian teammate then won the next two races in Italy and China in dominant fashion before Schumacher scored the team's last win of the season in Japan.

But the season did not end on a high as Schumacher and Barrichello were thwarted by problems and troubled by slippery conditions in Brazil and could manage only seventh and third respectively.

It was not a particularly fitting finish to a season that has seen them score 262 points, more than double that of closest rivals BAR-Honda, and equal McLaren's 1988 record of 15 wins in a year.

Schumacher showed frailties in the final races of the year when he suffered a disaster in China with his worst ever qualifying and race performances then ruined his Brazilian outing with a heavy practice crash.

But team principal Jean Todt said: "We are not happy if we only consider the Brazil Grand Prix because here, simply, the two in front of us have been better, so reward to them, they have been better and it shows.

"For various reasons, we did not do the perfect job here, we did not deliver a perfect job and we paid immediately. It's fair because if you do something not as good as the others you get penalised and that was the case today for us.

"Rubens started on pole and he finished third, Michael started 18th and finished seventh but I feel it's a good experience, because it shows us how difficult it is to win and it gives more motivation because we don't like to lose."