Alonso: “At the moment it's difficult to win a race, but not impossible”

Inevitably, like Spain's home hero, Fernando Alonso was called to attend today's FIA press conference on track.

“The city of Valencia has always been good to me over the years, with the permanent circuit seeing me make my debut in the winter of 2010 with Ferrari and there were other debuts here in 2005 and 2006 too,” the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver made his debut. “I also remember having a rally with an F1 car on the streets of the city in 2007, plus, when I raced in Formula Nissan, it was for a team from Valencia. But as far as racing on this street circuit goes, it hasn't gone so well. In 2008 I had an accident on the first lap with Nakajima and in the last two years there have been episodes caused by the appearance of the Safety Car on the track. You have to be competitive and also lucky and in the right place at the right time if the Safety Car comes out, as happened in Canada two weeks ago. In all “crazy” races you need a little luck. I hope we can be competitive this weekend and get an important podium for the team and for me. Hopefully we can put on a good show for the fans. Attendance hasn't been great here in past years, but the circuit organizers have worked hard to get the maximum number of fans here for Sunday. I hope we can put on a good show for them."

As for the question of whether a victory was possible this weekend, Fernando was cautious in his response. “At the moment it's difficult to win a race,” he argued. “There is no doubt, in fact it is a fact that we could have won in Monaco, where I was ten centimeters away from victory and in Canada, where I was on the front row of the grid. This means that the trend is positive and the circuit characteristics here are similar to Canada and Monaco, but we must remember that, at times, we were one second away from the fastest pace in qualifying."

The Spaniard doesn't have the feeling that the new change to the regulation that prohibits changing the engine mapping between qualifying and the race will change the order of things much. “I don't know if I can get pole because of the mapping changes,” said Fernando. “I don't think it will change much, because the car is faster and Vettel was sometimes 8 or 9 tenths faster than us even in the race, so we noticed a superior, dominant car and we cannot underestimate our rivals.”

Alonso is not the type to give up as can be seen from his attitude towards the situation in the Championship: "we need to have a better car and then we can win the title because there is still plenty of time and many races to go recover. But if we are 5th and 6th in qualifying, then it will be very difficult. The championship is long, so we need to focus on each race and try to get on the podium. Our goal is always to win every race, even if this is very difficult, but this is the way we are because we are Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. That's the pressure when you're Ferrari – you expect to win every race and every championship. I think I've driven the best seven races of my career so far this year, but now we need to continue to respect our rivals in an attempt to close the gap on them."