Tag Archives: Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso says that Ferrari can still fight for the World Championship this year, despite the impressive form shown by rivals in Australia.

In recent years Alonso has had to fight with what was often the third or fourth best car in the field, but this time he sees the possibility to catch up.

“I think that we have more potential that what we saw in Australia, first of all,” he said in Malaysia today. “I think we need to put everything in place and have a better weekend. We also understand that we need to improve, especially with the Mercedes cars, they seem very strong. But we have the potential. I think the team has the facilities, the team has the talent, to do a very good job.

“We are strong and we should be strong. We will do better, I’m pretty sure. We know that it has not been a perfect start, it seems like a repetition of the past couple of years, but these are different rules, a different rate of developing this year, and the hope is still perfectly there.”

Reminded that in 2012 he came to Malaysia and won with an uncompetitive car Alonso said that a repeat was unlikely – but he hasn’t given up hope.

“If we approach this weekend thinking that we will win the race like we did in 2012, it’s definitely optimistic. Why not? In F1 anything can happen. But I think what we saw in 2012, we see one time in life.

“We need to see how the next races go, in terms of our own performance, and see how we can develop quickly the car and be in a little bit better shape in Australia. As we said at the end of the race we were not happy with the performance we showed, and that we need to I improve as soon as possible. We have to work hard and race hard in the next couple of Grands Prix, and deliver some results.”

Meanwhile Alonso didn’t want to join in with any criticism of the new rules – and made some interesting observations about how his words might be interpreted.

“This is a very uncomfortable matter to speak about. If I say I like this F1, it will be criticised because this is not any more F1 for most of the fans. If I say that I don’t like this F1, fans will criticise [me] and say I only liked it when I win before.

“It’s the same with the performance. If you say that you are more or less happy with the fourth in Australia because you finished the race, you are not motivated any more and you’re not hungry for success. If you say that you want to win and we don’t have the performance, then you are criticising the team. So it’s very difficult when you have the microphone to talk about anything in this difficult contest.

“We need to give it a little bit more time. I understand the disappointment of the Australian race from the fans point of view, because the race was probably not as we thought. There was a lot of talk before the race about how exciting will be this new F1, how many cars will finish, maybe zero, if there finish zero cars how they will do it, the safety car will go out, all these sorts of things were talked about before the race.

“When 15 cars finished and there were not many problems and not many overtakings, people were maybe not expecting that. We need to give a little bit more time. Maybe here we’ll have a fantastic race, a fantastic show. The weather can play an important part here and create a very good scenario for the race, so we’ll see.”

It was a case of mixed fortunes for Fernando Alonso in Austin as he secured second place in the drivers’ championship but saw Ferrari lose ground to Mercedes in the battle for second in the constructors’ version.

Alonso had a typically feisty race in Austin, eventually finishing fifth.

“The main goal of the weekend was to beat Mercedes, to fight for the constructors’ championship,” said Alonso. It was not a good weekend from that aspect, we lost some points again. Lotus is getting closer, and for whatever reason we are losing a little bit of pace in the last Grands Prix. We need to find something for Brazil, because I think it’s going to be a tough weekend again.

“Entering Q3 is difficult, entering the points is difficult, so we need to improve for the next race. But in a way I secured second place in the drivers’ World Championship today, which I think with the actual car we have is World Champion of the rest.”

Alonso just managed to hold off Nico Hulkenberg in the closing laps.

“It was difficult I think, a very difficult race for us. From the start we knew that we could lose one position with Perez, starting on the wrong side of the grid. Unfortunately we lost it. I wasn’t able to run so close in the first stint, because I was damaging the tyres, I stepped back a little bit and then I recovered a little bit of pace around the pit stop time.

“With the hard tyre we were maybe a little bit more competitive, we were able to attack Perez, we were able to attack Hulkenberg. But I finished the tyres in the last two or three laps, so Nico was coming back, attacking again. I was lucky, one more lap and I would lose the position with Nico.

“When you are in free air you can manage the tyres a little bit, and control the wear of the tyres and control the pace, but when you are in traffic you never know how much you need to push. You would like to overtake, but you stress more the tyres, and it was a difficult race.”

Fernando Alonso says he suffered with headaches in the days after his off-track incident in Abu Dhabi, but he no longer has a problem.

Alonso went to hospital for a check-up before being allowed to fly home. Since then he has been allowed by the team to avoid media activities in order to rest.

“After Abu Dhabi I was fine, especially three or four hours after the race I was fine,” he explained when asked about it by this writer. “Then I finally passed the anti-doping, because I waited four hours to pass it. They said we need to check you because we had the alarm of the chassis, and when they did a normal control they saw some problem maybe, some lack of [sensitivity] in my left arm and my left leg, and because of that they were a little bit worried and they put in this thing and I went to the hospital for the MRI or I don’t know what we did.

“And after that all week I had a big headache, because the nerve I think is compressed, and I didn’t have enough blood pressure in the head. I was often in a lot of headache, and the nights were very difficult. Slowly the inflammation was coming normal, and I recovered the feelings.”

Alonso said he wasn’t having any issues in the car this weekend.

“No, not a problem. A little bit of pain yesterday night, and this morning when I woke up, but driving with all the adrenaline and warm-up is good, so maybe tonight again still some pain. But in the race when you are in the car, you forget everything.”

Meanwhile he was happy to qualify as high as sixth today after what looked like being a tricky weekend for Ferrari.

“I think the car was working better in qualifying. We keep struggling in the first sessions in the early morning with the cold track, we are not making the tyre work mainly, we’re struggling to put temperature in the tyre. In the afternoons yesterday and today the things improved a little bit.

“It was very windy this afternoon, and it was time also to interpret a little bit also the wind direction and drive differently corner-by-corner depending on the wind intensity. It was a tricky qualifying and maybe we had a good one, but obviously this doesn’t mask the problem of the weekend, which has been not enough pace.”

Fernando Alonso kept the 2013 World Championship battle alive by finishing fourth in Japan, although the Spanish driver admitted afterwards that he has no chance to beat Sebastian Vettel.

Alonso said that he was surprised to finish as high as he did at Suzuka.

“Yeah, a little bit because obviously we had some strong people in front of us, and we also had some threat from behind, like Kimi that was starting ninth,” he said. “But the race went good. From the start we recovered some positions, and then we’ve been a little bit lucky with some Mercedes problems, both having to go back. I think it was a good race in terms if points for the constructors’ championship. In terms of pace we didn’t have the pace to be on the podium, but after those three we’ve been very competitive in the race.”

“Even if Vettel doesn’t finish all the races I need to win nearly all, so I think it’s a matter of time. But it’s true that we have different goals now in the constructors’ championship. Today with the problems for Mercedes we are in a good position or in a better position.”

Alonso also went to the top of the all-time F1 points table, although he acknowledged that the change to 25 for a win had given him a hand.

“Today they told me I have the record of points in history. It’s a happy day. Leading the score in a sport like F1 is something great. I know that the points system changed some years ago but when someone will overtake me in the points no one will remember the points system, so let’s try to enjoy now the moment, and have a little celebration tonight!”