Alonso: “Better prepared now than before Australia”

Just as night always follows day, in the home race Fernando Alonso could not fail to be called upon in this afternoon's official FIA press conference held at the Catalunya Circuit. If the press was eager to write about a “completely new Ferrari in Spain”, the driver from Oviedo quickly proved it wrong. “Our car isn't very different,” began Fernando. “We don't have any major changes although we have some new parts. In the tests at Mugello we mainly concentrated on testing different set-ups and other aspects that we had not worked on in the pre-season tests. It was then a matter of completing our winter work. Some of the things we tried at Mugello worked well, others less so."

On the possibility of seeing a more competitive F2012 here in Spain, Fernando was cautiously optimistic: “We are certainly better prepared now than we were before Australia,” revealed Fernando. “We have some aerodynamic updates and other new features, we have to wait and see where we will be at the end of the race. Because we are Ferrari, there seems to be a lot of expectations, but the other teams have also developed their cars. What we have here in Barcelona is not the last step and we must continue to improve our performances for qualifying and the race in Monaco, Canada and for the following events. This is just the first of a long series of steps we will take, and if it does not prove sufficient, then we will have to work even harder for Monaco and be even more aggressive in our approach. We certainly won't give up in May, just after four races!".

Fernando agrees with his colleague Kimi Raikkonen, convinced that qualifying this year will be less important than in the past. “He's right,” said the Ferrari driver. “I looked at the numbers and in previous years, on this track, four or five overtaking maneuvers were recorded during the Grand Prix, while last year there were 57. In the past, being on pole meant having 60 % of the victory in your pocket, but now that's no longer the case." And what did Fernando promise the Spanish fans who will be in their thousands this weekend? “I can't promise anything,” admitted Fernando. “As always we will give 100%, but Formula 1 is not mathematics, it is a sport. We will do our best, we will work hard on every detail in the hope of achieving the best possible result."