[Snrub]

It seems like traditionally engines were pushed to their limits in the persuit of winning. I think it was felt that the only way to win the championship was to win races. Instead of a 4th place they'd take a DNF. If you look at the old point structure 10 6 4 3 2 1 you can see that 1 win was better than two 3rds or four 4ths.

I think Ferrari realized that even if the car was slower than the competition, MS was still likely to get atleast a 2nd place. Last year they were so much better than the competition that it didn't matter if they were substantially slower than they could have been in a different year.