Ferrari's wait set to end

Ferrari's wait for a race win is almost at an end according to Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo.

It's hard to see how he has come to that conclusion as there has certainly been no evidence of that on the track from the opening two races of the season.

Fernando Alonso finished 4th in Australia and 6th in Malaysia, while team-mate Felipe Massa finished 7th in Australia and 5th in Malaysia.

Both drivers have been well off the pace in comparison to both Red Bull and McLaren, especially in qualifying.

'It is clear that we need to have a better car, because if we want to match the qualifying pace of the other competitors that is what we need,' Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali told Autosport Magazine after the race in Malaysia on Sunday.

'it is clear that the main thing we have to focus on is how to work better in qualifying because the gap we saw on Saturday was too big.'

In the races in Australia and Malaysia Ferrari have looked stronger than they did in Qualifying, the Ferrari appears to be easy on its tyres, which brings a good advantage and its overall race pace hasn't been too far away from McLaren and Red Bull, illustrated in Malaysia by Alonso racing Hamilton without the advantage of the DRS system working (until the moment he drove into him of course).

But despite the positives and only being two races into the new 2011 Formula One season, the pressure is already on Ferrari and team principal Stefano Domenicali, technical director Aldo Costa and assistant Pat Fry all changed their travel arrangements this week, returning back to Italy yesterday rather than flying straight to Shanghai.

Ferrari hope to speed up development on an upgrade package for the car, which could be ready in time for China and that certainly seems to have appeased Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who remains confident that his team will improve soon when he told the BBC: 'I am certainly not happy with how the season has started but I have extraordinary confidence in people who, in difficult times, know how to react,'

'I know they are working hard and I have complete faith in both the human and technical capacity of our people. I think the period where we can only hope for a podium at the most will end.'

So either expect to see Fernando Alonso on the top step of the podium soon or see a very unhappy Luca di Montezemolo.