Fernando Alonso was frustrated to find himself only seventh at the end of the Chinese GP as the Ferrari showed an overall lack of performance – and he made it clear that he’s not enjoying the 2011 rules.
Alonso made a bad start and lost out to Felipe Massa for the third time in three races this year. Later he lost a lot of time when stuck behind Michael Schumacher, and while he briefly ran third, he was always destined to tumble down the order again.
“It was very bad the start, a lot of wheelspin, and I lost one position,” he said. “I had to close the door for the Force India [Di Resta] that arrived very quick as well. So we lost a position there. It was not a big problem, because we know this year’s races anything can happen with tyre degradation and pit stops etc. But it was not only the start, the race pace was too slow, so unfortunately we lost our opportunity.”
Alonso admits that he finds this year’s race format frustrating: “With this year’s tyres, some parts of the race you feel competitive, you feel you are doing a good race, and some parts of the race you feel very slow, because there are people who catch you and overtake you without any problems.
“So you need to keep concentration, you need to keep focussed on your own strategy. And in the end when you have a quick car, any strategy is good, as Webber showed today. When you have a slow car, everything is more difficult.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Not a particularly convincing statement given the amount of overtaking we saw in Shanghai.
I wonder if this has more to do with his team mate beating him again?
I was thinking that, tell that to Lewis Hamilton…
with ‘race’ Fernando means driving around the circuit at the front.
Man, you can sure tell he’s now been fully absorbed into the Ferrari way of doing things. Waaaa!
On the other hand he’s doing one thing you normally don’t expect a Ferrai driver to do – actually saying “the car’s too slow” out loud to the press. But then, it’s really just another way of singing, “It ain’t me, babe!”
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Wow, senseless hating on Alonso and Ferrari. Cute, guys. Every driver has made negative public statements at one time or another. But I’m sure you’re well aware of that.
As long as he doesn’t go so far as to say it’s worse than a truck!
I think its both Massa beating him off the start line again and Ferrari being lost at sea with the tyres.
We saw so many great overtakes and battles I think Fernando just dislikes not winning and rather losing out even more in the last 2 races. Thats not his kind of fun.
Uh-oh… Is Alonso not getting his way again? I’m beginning to believe he’s starting that downward career spiral all drivers eventually face…
Let’s hope Ferrari doesn’t give in to any demands or threats he makes if Massa starts beating him regularly.
But on the other hand, Alonso’s race wasn’t really that bad, if he had got past Schumacher he would have been pretty close to Massa at the end.
I think what he’s suggesting is that unless you’re tyres are in good shape you can’t race, which is basically what JB said after the race too. Perhaps some benefit of the doubt is required here given his native language isn’t english.
Cry baby!
Dear Fernando,
I’m sure its a very frustrating start to the season, and the new regluations and tyres are difficult to manage. None the less, you are expected to make the best of every circumstance, that’s why you were hired to drive at Ferrari and are being paid the big bucks. Time to pull your big boy pants on, grow up, get over yourself leave the World Champion Diva status in the dustbin where it belongs and get on with the business at hand. And if this doesn’t suit you, you could always ask for an all expenses paid trip to World Rallying– just ring up Kimi he can tell you all about it.
Sincerely the Tifosi.
Sincerely, the Tifosi.
Isn’t this the guy who activated his DRS at the wrong part of the circuit?
I read elsewhere that it was a malfunction, he’d been having trouble with his DRS for the last two races. But right, I saw that too, but it opened and then shut again, which is a bit strange, since it shouldn’t open where it did, even though he was behind Schumacher hunting for an opportunity to pass.
Where did you get the “With this year’s tyres, it’s impossible to race?” It seems like everything else in this article is identical to this interview with Lee McKenzie but I can’t hear that line.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/13108565.stm
Listening to that interview it sounds distinctly like “With this year’s tyres, some parts of the race you feel competitive, you feel you are doing a good race, and some parts of the race you feel very slow,” Which as a sentence sounds much more likely than “its impossible to race”
Unless you got that quote from a different source…
You’re absolutely right. I was standing behind Lee McKenzie in a scrum of TV camera crews, and listening back to my recording – with a lot of background noise and without the benefit of seeing his lips move – that’s what I thought he said. I record and transcribe many hours of soundbites and interviews every weekend, and sometimes you hear a couple of words wrong – I can assure I am more accurate than most of the people who write team press releases! I’ve now changed that in the story. Apologies to Fernando and those who’ve criticised him for the ‘impossible’ phrase, but the fact is in the rest of what he says he’s still pretty negative and downbeat about how racing is these days…
Thanks for changing it, with his accent and the crowd you were in its really not hard to imagine how someone could have heard it the way you did. For the record I think you do an excellent job and this just goes to show that even the best F1 journalists can make mistakes. In this case you were just unlucky a small mishearing of a few words completely changed the meaning of the sentence.
Here we go again. Alonso haters taking things waaay out of context. Massa beat Alonso conistently ? Wishful thinking. DRS activated at wrong part of the circuit ? You seriously don’t think he activated it on purpose ? Did you think maybe there were issues with the car which were out of his hands ?
Once again the media and the critics take a dig. Get over it !
Poor fellow, I shall stop picking on him immediately. No I don’t think he deliberately activated the DRS, I think it’s been giving him a lot of trouble. Massa hasn’t beat Alonso consistently, but he had a better race in China for sure. I think more than car trouble Alonso is having trouble formulting a strategy with the tyres that suits him. He came of age by getting a lead in the points early on in the season and then holding off his competetors till the end. This year like last year and the year before that he’s going to have to fight his way up towards the middle of the season. But as I said, that’s what he’s getting paid the big bucks-er euros for.
PS, I don’t recall Adam ever taking a dig at a driver.
Fred-free podia seem increasingly promising. Cheers to a season full of great performances by the likes of Maldonado, Pérez, Di Resta, Heidfeld, Petrov, Kobayashi, Massa, Button, Rosberg, Vettel, Hamilton … Schumacher!!!
You forgot to say Webber.
Okay How bad a loser can Alonso be…. A Bad workman blames his tools.
If it does not work out,keep complaining about everything.
Just fix the car and yourself and move on dont keep complaining.