At a summer press meeting in Italy, the Ferrari team has said that it will both continue the fight for the title this year, despite an 89-point deficit from Fernando Alonso to Sebastian Vettel, but also start concentrating all efforts on next year’s car as of September.
Stefano Domenicali, the team director, said that the team would start focusing on next year’s car as of the beginning of September, but he also said that if something changed in the championship now, they would act accordingly. That mean, of course, if suddenly Alonso won races and Vettel dropped out completely. In fact, with the current points scoring system, if Alonso won four races and Vettel dropped out of four, Alonso would make up that deficit entirely on Vettel. There are 25 points scored for a victory.
“We must try and win as many races as possible,” said Alonso. “We are realistic and the championship situation is what it is, but we have seen so often that there can be sudden reversals. And after all, we are Ferrari and we have a moral obligation, especially for the millions of fans spread around the world, to always think of the maximum goal.”