Marchionne: It was embarrassing

Ferrari big boss Sergio Marchionne declared that his team "screwed up" after suffering a resounding defeat to Mercedes in front of their faithful tifosi at their home Italian Grand Prix.

But he did not stop there, as Ferrari returned to their home base at Maranello, Marchionne piled on more disdain and pressure when he told Sky Italia, "It was embarrassing to see the difference between Mercedes and Ferrari. Mercedes were superior to Ferrari, we could not do anything."

"We did not improve since the race in Belgium. We obviously did something wrong in the last seven days. It was impossible, this is not Ferrari, we need to double our commitment."

"It's okay that the next circuits are more favorable, but it does not mean anything. We have to remove the smile from the face of these guys here, I'm flat out," added Marchionne.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that at Monza this year the team was celebrating seventy years of Ferrari in motor racing, thus the Italian company's heavy hitters and VIP guests were out in force, only to see their team fail to rise to the occasion.

Although Vettel finished third, he was over half a minute behind the two Mercedes drivers who by their own admission were in cruise control mode.

A day earlier, in tricky qualifying conditions, Ferrari were caught out by the weather, their drivers only good for seventh and eighth on the timing screens at the end of a marathon session. The pair were behind the two Silver Arrows, the two Red Bulls as well as Williams and Force India - two Mercedes customer teams.

In the three or so years that he has taken over as big boss at Ferrari, Marchionne has shown that he takes no prisoners when his team under-performs. He is also not shy to take a swipe at Vettel or Raikkonen when they are not performing, as he did last year with the German and this year with the Finn.

It will be interesting to monitor how his new bout of criticism will be received by the team, in the light of the fact that both Vettel (three years) and Raikkonen (one year) have signed extensions with the team,