Alonso: "We're not the fastest, or the slowest"
by Craig Normansell on Feb 23rd, 2012Ferrari's Fernando Alonso conceded that the new F2012 is "quite complex to understand", but that the Italian marque is gathering more information every time the car takes to the track.
"It is true that we keep getting information about the car, information that sometimes we should already have in our pocket, but the car seems quite complex to understand and we need to keep understanding better what is the behaviour," said the Spaniard after his second, and final, day in the car for this test.
Alonso also stated that speed is the ultimate gain over reliability. "I remember last year in the first tests we did a race distance on the final day and we were 1.5 seconds behind Red Bull in Australia", he said to the waiting press, "So a race distance is always welcome, but I prefer to have a performing car and to find reliability, than to have a strong car that is slow."
"At the moment we don't know exactly where we are. I think maybe we are not the fastest but definitely we are not the slowest – so we need to wait and see, especially in the final test. With hotter temperatures in Australia etc we will see how the cars work and in Q3 there is the time to see where you are in Melbourne."
Felipe Massa will take over the running of the car for the last two days of the Barcelona test.
Comments and Discussion
RT @BadgerGP: Fernando: "We're not the fastest, or the slowest." Uh oh. http://t.co/JZPW70px
I would never count out Ferrari so early in the game. Nor would I underestimate what Alonso can do. That he scored any points last year, let alone a victory, was remarkable. It has to be odd for Ferrari. If Alonso doesn't contend this year, the blame will be solely on them! And they know it as well as anyone. Nice position for Alonso, though.
Don't forget Chris, McLaren were in exactly the same boat last year and managed to pull it around!
It's a slightly transitional year for Ferrari, new tech team and new way of approaching development, but if they need to take a step back to become a force again it should be a good thing.