Alonso: ‘We need to improve the car’

Fernando Alonso has faced the media in Malaysia for the first time of the race weekend coming off Ferrari’s disappointing result at the Melbourne Grand Prix, where he finished in fourth place and thirty seconds behind race winner Sebastian Vettel.

Looking back at what went wrong, Alonso had this to say:

“We carried out investigations and we now understand what happened in terms of our performance in Melbourne and where we have to work. It’s true we need to improve the car, but we should also see how the next two or three races go, to see if the situation we experienced in Melbourne was the real thing, as the circuit there has unique characteristics and a special layout, so performances you see there are not repeated during the rest of the season. From our side, we believe we can be much more competitive and we will start by trying to have a better weekend here in Malaysia. I did not go to Melbourne expecting anything in particular, because from winter testing you can never be really sure what the situation is. However, we did expect to be fighting for pole and fighting for the win and that was not the case, so we were disappointed with our performance.”

Alonso also fended off critics of the team’s performance in Melbourne:

“Everyone is saying it was a disaster, but I disagree: we came fourth and finished ahead of Button and Webber. If we want to do better here and get on the podium, we have to do a better job and, as at every track, the most important thing is to have good balance in the car, especially here in Sepang, where like in Barcelona, you need downforce in the car produced by good aerodynamics. Tomorrow, we need to work to set up the car as well as possible and optimise the aerodynamics on the car.”

Looking towards the looming race, the Spaniard was wary of predicted weather conditions during both qualifying and the race:

“Sure, the rain will make it a more stressful weekend. You need to be ready for all eventualities and it would be useful if the opportunity arose on Friday to try the extreme and intermediate rain tyres to see how they work and in any case, information gathered from running the tyres in high temperatures will also be useful as we never did this in winter testing. It could be an unknown situation and a very interesting one, but that’s nothing to worry about as it will be the same for everybody.”

Alonso also dismissed notions that the team’s lack of pace was due to poor tyre performance:

“I am not a fan of saying the car performance was poor because the tyres did not work properly. It’s simple, if your car works properly, then it has to be good with soft tyres or hard ones, in cold conditions and in hot. Having said that, maybe the fact that race day was a warmer sunnier day had something to do with the fact we had a better pace on Sunday than on Saturday. In the race, we were fighting with Button and Webber, something that seemed very far away on Saturday.”