Ferrari team chief Stefano Domenicali has tipped Poland's outstanding young racing driver Robert Kubica to be a future champion - and to be involved all the way in this year's title fight.
Italian Domenicali said that Kubica and his BMW team had impressed him greatly this season and shown the pace and consistency to prove they are serious challengers for this season's honours.
Kubica, the first Pole to drive in Formula One, took his first pole position at the Shakir Circuit for Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix and finished third behind the two Ferraris of Brazilian winner Felipe Massa and Finn Kimi Raikkonen.
Domenicali, the newly-installed team principal at Ferrari in succession to Frenchman Jean Todt, said: "I think Kubica did a very nice, positive race.
"On the podium, he told me he struggled a bit when dealing with the oil in the first corners, but the pace he and BMW have deserves respect from us all. He is a driver who I believe will be in the title fight until the end."
It was Kubica's second successive podium finish and with his BMW Sauber team-mate Nick Heidfeld of Germany finishing fourth showed that the team are now one of the genuine front-runners and a real threat to Ferrari.
On a weekend when McLaren Mercedes-Benz failed to make a serious impact, BMW's consistency and pace lifted them to the top of the Constructors' Championship while Ferrari's defending drivers world champion Raikkonen took over on top of the Drivers' Championship.
Domenicali said that although Ferrari have won the last two races, and lie just one point behind BMW, he is adamant that the Italian team must work much harder to maintain their form and stay on top.
"Our programme this year is based on constant growth," he explained. "We must develop the car all the time because we must work in parallel on two fronts.
"We must keep on working on reliability, because it can create situations difficult to recover from, and on performance, with the search for developments that we must do race-by-race. We want to carry on this way at Barcelona."
He added that despite their indifferent form in Malaysia and Bahrain, McLaren will bounce back as a major challenger for the titles.
"We will see this at Barcelona, because that is where things will settle down. Every team has tested there and I'm convinced McLaren will be back to their usual form. It is too soon to write them off."
While Ferrari and BMW flew home satisfied with their efforts, Briton Lewis Hamilton and his Finnish team-mate Heikki Kovalainen had to admit they had not covered themselves in glory.
"But don't write us off," said Hamilton, 23. "There is a long way to go yet and a long way before anyone decides the outcome of the world championship. I am not giving up. I aim to win it."
AFP
