Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali believes that the Italian team team does not need a huge jump in performance in order to compete in the 2012 Formula One season, saying that Fernando Alonso's Japanese GP shows that the team is nearly there.
Alonso took second place in the Suzuka race, finishing a second behind race winner Jenson Button in his McLaren and beating new champion Sebastian Vettel to the flag.
The result came despite Ferrari struggling for pace in practice and qualifying during the Japanese race, and oddly after the team dropped some of their recent car upgrades.
But Domenicali said that the result proved that Ferrari's task to create a race-winning car for 2012 was not a huge one, saying that he was sure that the new 2012 machine was "under control".
"If you look at the way of what happened in Japan, there was not such a huge gap to overcome, I must say," he was quoted as saying by the Autosport website on Monday.
"So we need to be spot on in the preparation of the car without getting too anxious of being so far behind."
He added: That means we are maybe closer than what we were thinking and we need to, on the other side, make sure everything is under control in terms of development and in terms of the baseline of the car."
Domenicali again stressed that the Italian squad needed to ensure there was focus placed on understanding their tyre performance, which the team has struggled with throughout 2011.
"One element that is crucial is to understand the tyre performance," he pointed out.
"And [we need to] make sure we really use that as a performance factor because I think there is a lot to learn after this season on that."
But for the rest of 2011, Domenicali said that the performance Alonso showed at the Japanese race meant that he was confident the team could now challenge for wins in the final dead rubber races.
"This weekend shows that the most important element that comes out is that the equilibrium of being very strong and not so strong is on the edge," he rambled oddly.
"So this has to motivate everyone at home to make sure that we keep pushing, because in the last four races of the season we have to make sure that we maximise the points and we can achieve a win.
He insisted: "That is within our possibilities. Plus we are still fighting for second position with Fernando."
Alonso is now third in the standings after the Suzuka race, eight points behind McLaren's Jenson Button.
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