F1: Alonso Not Expecting Short-Term Fix At Ferrari

Formula 1

F1: Alonso Not Expecting Short-Term Fix At Ferrari

Fernando Alonso is making no predictions about the speed of Ferrari’s return to top form...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 22, 2012 Sepang (MAS)

Fernando Alonso finished fifth in the season opener in Australia. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Fernando Alonso was in a realistic mood Thursday as he discussed the lack of performance of the Ferrari F2012 – and he made it clear that his fifth place in Australia was helped by problems for the likes of Michael Schumacher and Romain Grosjean.

Alonso said that while he was hoping for improved form in Malaysia, there is no logical reason why the car would be better.

“Hopefully, yes, but I don’t think so, to be honest,” he said. “We have been testing at different circuits – Jerez, Barcelona and then in Australia with more or less the same car, with the same problems on it. The cars are nearly identical for everybody compared with Australia, I guess, so I don’t think there will be big surprises here.

“Let’s wait and see, and try to adapt the car to the circuit, the conditions, the heat. Then, yes, the qualifying. We saw the true performance, we are not as competitive as we want, probably, but then in the race anything can happen. In Australia with a good start and the stops and the strategy you can put yourself in a decent place. We will try to do a similar race here and try to defend as many points as possible.”

He conceded that the team had been playing catch-up in all three seasons since he joined.

“We need to work hard every day and night to normally catch up people in these three years," the two-time World Champion said. "But anyway, you know, the experience has been fantastic – as you all know, fighting for the World Championship in the first year, and then last year with one win and 10 podiums. Obviously, the target is always to win the World Championship, but it was not possible the last two years.

“This year we are convinced that we will fight for it. We need to stay focused and work more than the others, knowing that we are a little bit behind now. But the championship is long. We stay calm, we stay focused, because we see a lot of determination in the team. We see the team with a very good atmosphere, [we] trust each other in the team, we are very united, so the time will come to us very soon.

“Obviously, knowing we need to work, we need to catch up with the guys in front. We are not in the situation we wanted to start the 2012 championship but, after 11 years in Formula One, I think you understand how long the championship is, what you need when you have the best and what you need when you don’t have the best car – which is sometimes more points or less points.

“But as for as our targets and our goals, we need to score as many points as possible in these couple of races and in a very short period of time try to be on the podium and win races. If we manage to do that, we have plenty of races to recover the gap. If we don’t manage to do that, it’s because someone else did a better job than us. We just need to wait and see, but I have 100 percent trust in the team.”

Alonso was making no predictions about the speed of Ferrari’s recovery.

“I don’t think it will be one race in which we change the car," he said. "I think at every race we will try to make improvements as we did over the last few years, and it won’t be just for us; I think everyone will make updates at every race. We just need to make ours work a little bit more.

“Obviously, we have a little advantage from that, because our car needs more speed, and maybe it’s easier for us to find than for some others whose cars are maybe more developed than ours. New parts will slowly come at every race and hopefully they work, but there’s not one magic race or one magic moment when we think things can change. I think we will work day and night and, as I said before, the team is very focused on that, and I see great reaction from everybody, so I expect a strong Ferrari soon.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.