Dennis wary of off-colour Ferrari

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Wednesday 6th August 2008

While he wasn't that impressed by Ferrari during the Hungary Grand Prix, McLaren team boss Ron Dennis insists it will be close battle between the two teams for the World Championship.

Ferrari were on course for victory at the Hungaroring when Felipe Massa's engine blew up three laps before the finish while his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen eventually settled for third behind McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen and Toyota's Timo Glock.

Dennis admits he wasn't that impressed with the Scuderia in Hungary despite Massa's pace early on.

"I don't think they were particularly (good). Massa had a good race but Kimi wasn't particularly strong," he said.

"Really the outcome of the first corner was that people could see Massa in the lead and who was in second place. But we switched into fuel strategy mode, to make sure that we stopped second to him in order that we could do a long second stint and overtake him at the final stop.

"The slightly flat spotted tyre and the puncture put paid to that strategy but I think that Lewis had the pace to win."

Dennis, though, is refusing to get too carried away as he believes Ferrari are capable of striking back at any time.

"Confidence is a weakness, you've just got to take every race as it is. I don't think there's any doubt that we're in for a very competitive world championship and it's going to be a close race between ourselves and Ferrari.

"I'm very pleased with how our own developments have helped to get us ahead of Ferrari though."