Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali admitted the Spanish Grand Prix was painful to watch after Fernando Alonso led for the first quarter of the race but got lapped by Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton before the chequered flag.
Alonso made a brilliant start from fourth on the grid to lead Vettel into the first corner, but at the second pit stops he dropped back to third as the Ferrari's lack of pace became evident. He eventually dropped to fifth and, during a long final stint on the hard tyres, was lapped by Vettel and Hamilton with four laps remaining.
"There is no denying that being lapped hurts," Domenicali said. "It's even more painful after seeing a driver of Fernando's calibre putting on such a breathtaking display at the start and then fighting like a lion to keep drivers with clearly faster cars behind him for almost twenty laps."
The result was all the more galling for Domenicali as Ferrari had hoped a major update on the car - part of which was deemed illegal by the FIA - would make it more competitive.
"We need to provide him [Alonso] and Felipe [Massa] with a car with which they can fight all the way to the end of a race and not just in the first part," the Ferrari boss added. "On a track that favours cars that have a lot of aerodynamic downforce, ours are lacking in this area and that was glaringly obvious, especially on the new hard tyres brought here by Pirelli. We never managed to get this type of tyre to work and our pace was at least two seconds off that of the first four."
However, Domenicali is hoping Ferrari will be better off at Monaco, Canada and Valencia where the hard Pirelli tyres will not be used.
"What to do now? Continue to work on improving the car and finding the aerodynamic downforce that is lacking. We now go into a run of three races which will see the use of the soft and supersoft tyres: we will see what happens and assess the situation at that point."
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