Fernando Alonso: “We know that we need to keep working…”

Fernando Alonso was in an upbeat mood in Malaysia today despite modest positions in both practice sessions after a less than perfect day for Ferrari.

Alonso was ninth in both sessions, and was 1.7s off the frontrunning pace in the afternoon. Team mate Felipe Massa was sixth in both sessions. However, the Spaniard expects to make progress tomorrow.

“We struggled a little bit with the balance of the car,” said Alonso. “We tried to do some set-up changes, some aero work as well in the morning. We tried to do our programme. Obviously we know that we need to keep working tonight, to keep changing what we can improve in the car, and be more competitive tomorrow.

“I think the race weekend is very interesting, what we have in front of us. A very interesting qualifying tomorrow then a difficult race for everybody here, with pit stops, with tyre degradation that seems to be higher here than Melbourne, with the weather conditions we can face on Sunday, so still many things to answer this weekend. We are trying to get ready for all of them.”

Alonso says he’s not worried about Ferrari not being a challenger for victory in the first race, after looking so good in testing.

“I think McLaren did a very good step in Melbourne with the car, and Red Bull was just testing in the winter and was not making the full potential. I think we arrive in our 100% in Australia with a very good winter, but obviously maybe we were not quick enough compared with our main rivals.

“That was only a first race, the championship is long, it seems also last year in some races McLaren and Red Bull were fighting, some other races Ferrari and Red Bull were fighting, some others only Red Bull was in front of everybody. I think this can change circuit by circuit, and hopefully we can have a better weekend here than Melbourne, and better in the future as well.”

Like other drivers Alonso expects the DRS to be more effective here: “I think this should be one of the places where it should work better. On the main straight there’s enough space to maximise the potential of the top speed. If the race is dry and we can use I think we can have more overtaking manoeuvres than in the past, and hopefully a better show for everybody.”