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Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo says Fernando Alonso was "right to get mad" at his team after it failed to match Red Bull this year.

Alonso finished a distant second in the drivers' championship and tensions between driver and team started to surface midway through the season. Both Alonso and Montezemolo have stressed that the ruction was blown out of proportion by the media, but Montezemolo admitted his driver was within his rights to be upset with Ferrari.

"He is the strongest of all and there are no problems with him," he said. "He was right to get mad, as we have to give him a competitive car, something we didn't do in the second half of the season."

He added: "It's obvious I'm not happy with the way things went. However, it's also true that we are the only team in the world for whom it's seen as a tragedy to come second, which seems something of an exaggeration to me. Clearly, we now need to win and we've had enough of finishing second."

Next year Ferrari will pair Alonso with Kimi Raikkonen in what is likely to be a fast but feisty partnership. Montezemolo believes only Mercedes' pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg comes close.

"I am pleased I followed [team principal Stefano] Domenicali's recommendations regarding Kimi: when I met him, I saw he was on great form and extremely motivated and I was pleased to see how warmly he was received both inside and outside the team. I think the pairing we have, along with that at Mercedes, is the strongest in the 2014 championship."

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