Todt: McLaren pace no surprise.

Jean Todt has joined the chorus of voices at Maranello insisting that Ferrari had not expected to beat McLaren in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Whether benefiting from hindsight or not, the diminutive Frenchman admitted that the result had not been a surprise to him, and vowed that the Scuderia would work harder to avenge the defeat when the world championship resumes with back-to-back races in Canada and the USA next month.

Jean Todt has joined the chorus of voices at Maranello insisting that Ferrari had not expected to beat McLaren in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Whether benefiting from hindsight or not, the diminutive Frenchman admitted that the result had not been a surprise to him, and vowed that the Scuderia would work harder to avenge the defeat when the world championship resumes with back-to-back races in Canada and the USA next month.

"We all know that Monte Carlo is a specific place," Todt explained, "Take last year's race, and the one before, and you will see that Monte Carlo was different to Canada. We knew from the beginning that McLaren are very strong and, here, they were stronger, so it was no surprise to find that. Let's just say congratulations."

Although there is no testing planned between Monaco and Montreal, Todt revealed that there would be developments taken to Canada.

"We have a few modifications which we will have for the next race," he confirmed, "You must always push harder. We respect our competitors very much. They are very good, they are very strong, and they have been more reliable than us at the beginning of the season. Our two teams have been ahead of the others, and I think it will be like that for a while, but, as I said before, those behind are working hard. I'm sure we can progress - we need to progress more than the others."

Perhaps recalling Ferrari's past brushes with authority, Todt made no mention of the post-race furore over McLaren's alleged team orders, saying only that Ferrari needed to up its game if it was to continue battling for wins.

"We need to fight in the remaining races in the championship," he insisted, "Here, qualifying was very close for Felipe, because he finished less than one tenth behind Hamilton, and Kimi had his qualifying problem and ended up 16th. But saying that, McLaren were quickest and, basically, there's nothing else to say."

The team boss admitted that the decision to put Massa onto a set of the softer Bridgestone tyres as his first pit-stop may have been a mistake, although it was likely that McLaren would still have won the race.

"If you talk about pace, up to the first pit-stop, Felipe was right behind Hamilton," he noted, "Then we decided to put on softer tyres, while the others stayed on the harder tyres. Felipe took over five laps or so to pass one car and, in those five laps, he lost 15 seconds. We knew the best he could do was third unless the others in front had a problem, so he stayed in third position."

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