Maurizio Arrivabene likened the Scuderia's 2015 season to a steep climb up a mountain, the ascent of which is still not completed according to Ferrari's team principal.
While he found grounds for satisfaction as he reflected on Ferrari's campaign this season, Arrivabene, who also endured his maiden year as a Formula 1 team principal, believes Ferrari is still a work in progress.
"At the beginning in February at the first test we had some good feelings, but the mountain to climb was really big," Arrivabene said.
"The overall team, not only the guys who are here, but the guys who are in Maranello, they have said this and they are climbing the mountain. When we get to the top, we find Mercedes and they get there before us. But I am very happy and I want to take this occasion to say thanks to all of them."
Many paddock pundits were skeptical when Arrivabene was nominated as team principal by Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne in November 2014, given his lack of experience in managing a racing team, let alone an F1 outfit. He has now concluded his first year at the helm with a good track record and tangible results.
"If you do this job it’s like you guys, I know a lot of you travel the world for many years, and people think that we are visiting nice places and having fun etc...
"But what I have to say if you want to do this job you need a lot of passion, and the passion is moving forward and all of us including you all around the world, is to do our best. But you need the passion first."
In spite of Ferrari's indisputable achievements over the last twelve months and its placing as the number one contender to challenge Mercedes' dominance in 2016, the Scuderia remains in development mode, with more headways still necessary believes Arrivabene.
"When you’re not winning the championship, you can’t say the mission is completed, but the beginning of the year the mission was quite tough.
"We need to work hard on all of the components on the car, we need to take another step forward with the engine, we need to work on the chassis and also the aero.
"For us the engine is very important and this year we’ve had a big improvement. But the chassis and aero guys were not sleeping so if you want to have the perfect situation, you need to know the single detail because the devil is in the details, and to work for 360 degrees. But most importantly, you need to make sure all of the guys are working together and are helping each other. "
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