Ferrari has promised a thorough review of its performance in the German Grand Prix, after McLaren's Lewis Hamilton took another comfortable win.

Stung not only by Lewis Hamilton's comeback victory at Hockenheim, but also by the apparent turnaround in the performance stakes between itself and McLaren, Ferrari headed back to Maranello for a week of intensive head-scratching ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

While content to admit that the Woking team had better pace over one lap, the Scuderia was confident that it had the upper hand in race conditions, but that clearly wasn't the case in Germany, where Hamilton showed the field a clean pair of heels in the opening laps, and was then able to reel in Felipe Massa and Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr to claim the win in dramatic fashion. World champion Kimi Raikkonen, meanwhile, was barely a factor all weekend.

With Massa coming home third and Raikkonen fifth, it was a second successive poor result for Ferrari, following its Silverstone debacle, and team boss Stefano Domenicali admitted that there were mysteries to be solved if the Scuderia was to halt Hamilton's charge at the Hungaroring.

"Being unable to exploit our usual race pace and economical use of tyres was one of the most critical points of the weekend," Domenicali conceded, "Normally, we know that McLaren are fast over a single lap, and that this is a trade-off with consistency and pace during the race.

"Unfortunately, [at Hockenheim], we have seen that that was not the case. In qualifying, of course, they were really strong but, if you consider the fuel that they had for Lewis and [Heikki] Kovalainen, Felipe's lap was really good. This time, if you think that, in the first stint, we were slower by half a second, it shows that there is something that has to be really understood.

"We need to go deeply into the details without making any quick solutions because that's the mistake that we shouldn't make at this moment."

Although largely dry for the F1 runners, Hockenheim was plagued by a gusty wind, but Domenicali was unwilling to draw any swift conclusions that changing conditions may have hampered his team's performance.

"It's possible, but I don't want to take any premature reasons because we need to go deeply and analyse the reason for this situation," he insisted, "It's too microscopic to have an easy solution.

"For sure, what we have seen today is something that we haven't seen since the start of the season in terms of consistency and pace. It is clear that McLaren has made another step forward in respect of the consistency during the race. During this weekend, in the long runs, they were pretty good. But, on the other side, I'd say we were too slow and we have to understand the reason why."

Massa suggested that one of the reasons for the lack of pace was the brakes, which the Brazilian claimed that he struggled with throughout the race.

"I think that we had a problem of high brake temperatures," Domenicali confirmed, "That is one of the reasons why Felipe was not able to attack. Generally, he was also not happy about the grip of the car, so he couldn't be aggressive either on soft or hard tyres. That was really the main problem, the reason why we were not even able to attack Piquet."

Raikkonen, however, struggled throughout the weekend.

"He was not happy at all with his car's behaviour from Friday," Domenicali explained, "He said the car was too nervous at the rear and he couldn't have the grip that he wanted. If you compare that with what we have seen during the test last week, this is the reason why I said I don't completely understand the reason why because, last week, we were pretty competitive in the last sector.

"Kimi, too, was not happy with the general grip of the car. He couldn't be aggressive, as he felt the rear was still too loose and it was not possible for him to be on the pace that he wanted. If you look at the first stint, it was the best in a way. It took a long time before he caught Robert Kubica."

Domenicali refused to agree that Raikkonen was finding it harder than Massa to locate the sweet spot of the F2008, despite the Finn again failing to translate testing performance into race success.

"For sure, the window of set-up can be wider if you go to the direction that is not taking the car where you want," Domenicali said, "Generally speaking, the difference is not so big but that shows that the car is very sensitive if you don't do the thing properly."

Despite his poor result, however, Domenicali refused to suggest that Raikkonen was fading from title contention, despite the Finn slipping seven points behind Hamilton heading to Hungary.

"You have to look at the points, but the thing I don't want to do - now or ever - is to make a risky conclusion of the driver situation," the team boss insisted, "As we said in Silverstone for Felipe, after that race, I didn't want to say something and [then go] in the other direction with Kimi.

"For sure, he is the first one not to be happy about the situation, but I'm pretty sure that he's very keen to react straight away in Hungary. As we all are."