Ferrari zero in on cause of DRS failure on Alonso's car

Ferrari, after investigating the rare DRS failure that afflicted Fernando Alonso's car in Bahrain and ruined any chance of a good points scoring finish, have confirmed that it was caused by "the breakage of a mechanical component within the DRS system". 

"It's hard to recall a race where so many things went wrong," said team boss, Stefano Domenicali. "The DRS failure prevented Fernando, who yet again produced a great performance, from fighting Vettel for the win. Then for Felipe, there were the two tyre related problems that pushed him out of the points and prevented him from getting the top five finish that was within his grasp. We had the potential to get these results, but we were unable to do so, partly because of external influences."

With Ferrari's confidence still on a high after a rare mechanical failure on one of their cars, Domenicali does not believe that there is a reason to be concerned. With the Italian marquee priding itself on its reliability record, which gave them a fighting chance to challenge for the 2012 drivers championship, the importance of getting both cars to the finish in a strong position is not lost on the Italian.

Ferrari now trail Red Bull by 32 points in the Constructor's Championship while Fernando is fourth in the standings and 30 points behind leader Vettel.

"We must continue to develop the car and increase our understanding of the tyres, which is more crucial than ever this year," he added.

"In these first four races of the season, we have not managed, for various reasons, to bring home the points that were within our grasp. That's why the gap to the top in both classifications seems quite large, but we must not be discouraged by this, quite the contrary, because we have seen so often, both in our favour and against, how things can change in a hurry.

"We believe in our ability to be in the fight for the titles right to the end and this time, we have been in that fight since the start, which has not been the case for a while. At the same time, we must be aware that in order to achieve our objectives, we have to be perfect in every area."