"Usually the Spanish Grand Prix is the litmus test for the pecking order down the grid after the first run of races outside Europe," said Luca Baldisserri, Ferrari's head of track activities.
"From what we saw, it seems we are maintaining a slight advantage, which means we can be reasonably confident about the rest of the season so long as we don't make any mistakes and continue to develop the car."
"If we had wanted to, we could have gone a bit faster... "
Kimi Raikkonen,
Ferrari F1 driver |
Raikkonen celebrated a hat-trick, only the second of his career, by adding the fastest lap to the race win and pole position.
The Finn is now nine points clear of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton while Ferrari have 47 points to BMW Sauber's 35 in the constructor's title race.
After scoring just one point in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, which was won by Hamilton, Ferrari showed on Sunday that they are the team to beat now that the season has moved back to Europe.
Easy win
Even though Raikkonen finished only 3.228 seconds ahead of Brazilian team mate Massa, he had no need to force the pace.
"If we had wanted to, we could have gone a bit faster but there is no point to push it when you don't need to," the Finn told a news conference.
"I think it was closer than we expected but, saying that, there were many safety cars so without them maybe it would have been looking a little bit different."
Despite the apparent ease of his win, Raikkonen said it had been harder than his only previous victory at the Circuit de Catalunya with McLaren in 2005, which he described at the time as a boring afternoon.
"I think that race was much easier," Raikkonen said.
"Okay, we had a safety car then also, but it was on the first lap so it was a pretty clear race."