Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali has admitted that seeing
Kimi Raikkonen make it to the end of the French Grand Prix provided a real boost to the Scuderia as it heads into the second half of a season-long battle with Mclaren and
BMW Sauber.
The Finn was comfortably leading the race at Magny-Cours when he suffered an exhaust problem that not only allowed team-mate
Felipe Massa through to take the victory, but also threatened to leave him pointless for the third straight race.
Despite fluctuating engine performance, Raikkonen managed to soldier on, initially matching Massa's pace, before coming home in second place with remnants of the exhaust outlet either having detached completely from the car or flapping wildly on its flanks.
"If you lose the exhaust, there's no more performance - and then you start to have different parameters on the engine," Domenicali explained, "The temperatures go up, the water pressure comes down, everything is mixed up.
"We were trying to do what we could in order to protect the engine under those conditions and, after all the things that were possible to do, just waited until the chequered flag. You could see that there were a lot of switches being moved around. In a way, it was very, very good - and very important - to finish the race with eight points in that condition.
"For sure, we were very worried, no doubt. It was a long race to finish and maybe we lost a lot of years and a lot of hair, but that's part of the game. I'm extremely happy [the engine] lasted. In that condition, you never know. It may stop any lap, it's too difficult, it's critical."
There were suggestions from some quarters that Raikkonen should have received the mechanical defect flag, which would have required him to pit for attention to the problem, notably the parts hanging loose on the car. He didn't, however, and Domenicali revealed that the team had also eschewed the chance to remove the debris during the Finn's second pit-stop.
