During the first two days of Formula 1 testing in Barcelona Fernando Alonso endured arguably his toughest couple of days in the cockpit of the Ferrari F150th Italia but at the end of the second day managed to see the positive side of his mishaps and declared that Red Bull have the strongest car at this stage of proceedings.
Alonso said, “I still believe that, at the moment the Red Bull is the strongest car, but there are at least four other teams – us, McLaren, Mercedes and Renault – that are capable of fighting for the wins.”
Like most the two times world champion was not reading too deeply into testing times, “It is always very difficult to assess the results from testing: it only takes ten kilos more or less fuel or for worn tyres to be used at any one point in the day, to make a difference that can amount to seconds.”
On Saturday Alonso’s Ferrari stopped out on circuit early on in the day, but the Spaniard was philosophical about the incident, “One of the mechanics said to me that when things go well in Barcelona, we don’t win the championship, while if we have problems here, then it’s a different story: let’s hope that’s really the case!”
World champion Sebastian Vettel is adamant that the new Pirelli tyres will be a major factor in 2011. Alonso agrees, “Here again we saw degradation similar to what we had noticed both in Valencia and Jerez at the first two tests. If we had to race at the Catalunya Circuit tomorrow, we would need three or even four stops to finish the race, however it will not be just a case of changing the way we tackle the race, but also the entire weekend track time, from free practice through to qualifying.”
He predicted, “Tyre wear will definitely create the best overtaking opportunities: if you find yourself fighting against a driver on tyres that are at the start or the end of their stint, the performance difference could be very big, which would make for overtaking, even more definitely than using KERS and the moveable rear wing.”
With regard to the Bahrain Grand Prix situation, the Ferrari driver said, “It is hard for us to state a clear cut position, because in the end we only know as much as you journalists, given we are following the situation through the media. We have to wait a few more days and then the powers that be will make a decision.”
Source: YallaF1
