F1: Ferrari defends development strategy

Ferrari Formula 1 chief Maurizio Arrivabene (pictured) has defended his team's development policy following a disappointing British Grand Prix weekend.

While Sebastian Vettel took advantage of a strategy call to finish on the podium at Silverstone, Arrivabene said his glass was "half empty" because of Ferrari's lack of pace in dry conditions. However, the Ferrari chief believes there is nothing wrong with the way the team is developing the SF15-T this year.

"We have normal development on the car, and as I said many many times, the development is going all through the year," said Arrivabene. "It's not something that we put on the car all together [in one big update package].

"The methodology is important, so instead of putting 10,000 things on the car all together you put certain things on. That way you can measure if they are working well, if it's a step forward, otherwise you lose it."

Arrivabene does not feel that Ferrari has lost ground to championship leader Mercedes, drawing comparisons with the gap between the two teams at May's Spanish Grand Prix.

"If you look at Barcelona it was more or less the same story," he said. "We are going to have tracks that are in our favour and other tracks where we are struggling.

"I'm not finding excuses because this is something I said last time in Austria. I would like our people to be concentrated on the weaknesses instead of looking to the strengths."

Kimi Raikkonen, who fell to eighth at Silverstone after a tire gamble failed late in the race, believes Ferrari needs to make sure its form is less track-specific.

"We've seen at other circuits it depends a lot on the layout and what tyres we run," said Raikkonen. "But I expect it to be a different story at the next race and at different circuits again.

"This circuit is not ideal for us, but we have to improve and we have to get better whatever circuit it is. The car felt quite good in the race, so let's just keep working."

Originally on Autosport.com