Fernando Alonso: “We need to start on the right foot…”

Fernando Alonso says that Ferrari in much better shape than it was this time last year, but insists that the Scuderia is just one of five teams that will set the pace in 2013.

Alonso stressed how important it is for Ferrari to get off to a flying start this season.

“I think it was not difficult to start better than last year because it was difficult to start any worse,” said Alonso in Melbourne today. “We were a little bit too far behind, and the winter has been much better than the last year, understanding the car and working with the car and getting the results we more or less expect.

“That will give us much more confidence and optimism to start the season, but who knows? I think it will be a very interesting championship, very challenging first part of the championship with Australia, Malaysia. Difficult circuits, difficult weather as well – changeable. So we need to start on the right foot and hopefully scoring some good points for the championship.”

Asked if Ferrari can win the season opener, he said: “I think difficult to know. No-one knows who can win this race at this moment. We have to wait and see for answers to some questions that winter testing doesn’t answer. I think there are top teams with a little bit of advantage.

“Maybe it’s not the same as last year where we saw seven different winners in the seven first races. It was a little bit mixed on the grid. I think this year with the consistency in the rules I expect the five top teams to have a little advantage and not to have many, many surprises in the first races. But from these five top teams I think it’s very difficult to see really after winter testing who has this extra two- or three-tenths that can make you win. At the moment I think it’s very close and very difficult to choose one favourite.

“I think Mercedes, McLaren, Lotus, Ferrari and Red Bull show up some potential in different days in testing and different parts of races last year. I think it‘s difficult to choose.”

Alonso said the team is well prepared after testing,

“We more or less did the programme that we planned – even though we had some changeable weather on some days – and we arrived here with our hundred per cent of the potential at the moment in the car. We don’t really miss anything, that was a problem before.

“So, hopefully it’s enough to be competitive and this circuit in particular I like a lot. I have been always very comfortable here and with good performance, the same in Malaysia, these first two races can be a good opportunity for us to score some good points. But I don’t know how quick we can be.”