Fernando Alonso: “We confirmed we are not competitive”

A frustrated Fernando Alonso is hoping that he can still score some decent points in Australia, despite starting from a disappointing 12^th place.

Alonso didn’t make it out of Q2 after spinning into the gravel trap at the first corner, while his team mate Felipe Massa starts down in 16^th. The situation appears to be even worse than the team anticipated.

“I think I touched the grass,” he admitted. “I didn’t realise when I was driving, but looking at the TV, the left tyres were on the grass, so I spun putting the tyres there, and qualifying unfortunately in the gravel. I don’t know what would be the position without the incident.

“Maybe it was possible to go in Q3, maybe not, because the times were very close. If you go in Q3 you have no new tyres for tomorrow, so maybe at the end of the day it’s a good compromise to be P12 with new tyres.

Regarding the race, he said: “I think points will be the first priority, and then second priority, top five.”

Alonso made it clear that he was not very happy with the team’s current situation.

“We are obviously not quick enough, we are not competitive to fight for the top places at the moment, so it’s something that maybe we knew or we expected after winter testing. We have some ideas, and maybe today we confirmed we are not competitive.

“We still have a lot of work to do, we have to be more organised than ever, I’m sure we worked 24 hours a day before this race, now we need to work 25, and it’s the only way to improve the car and win races soon.

“This is the target. The target maybe was to start the championship with a competitive car, able to win races, that was the message all winter and all the second part of last year. We didn’t arrive to that target, to arrive in Australia with a winning car. We need to arrive as soon as possible with a winning car in the next couple of Grands Prix.”