Fernando Alonso: “The fans give me a great boost!”

It was nice to return to Maranello after Sunday evening's victory. While still on the plane I thought about the race and found it hard to believe it. Then, once I arrived here, I saw that there were smiles on the faces of our people and I was very pleased to see how much desire there is to work to improve the car in the shortest possible time.

During the race I started to think that I could only make it after the last pit stop. With the intermediate tires I tried to earn as much as possible but I knew that, with the track drying out and with the increasingly real possibility of switching to dry tires, everything could change. Then after the stop I saw that Perez was going very fast and was putting a lot of pressure on us but I knew that in any case there was only one dry line, no more than two meters wide: even if he had come in my slipstream, overtaking would not have been easy and I hoped that I would have I was able to defend myself until the end.

It's a shame that none of my friends bet on victory in Sepang or the championship lead after the first two races: I think they would have earned some good money! However, the true friends are all very happy and happy about this success but no one, like the whole team, has any illusions. This start to the championship was not as we wanted and there is much, much to do. But we don't give up and it is one of the characteristics that I have always admired about Ferrari, both when I was an opponent and now that I am part of it. We will still run the next two games on defense, there is no doubt. Until we demonstrate that we are competitive and that we can constantly fight for the podium or the victory, we will have to try to limit the damage, we cannot do otherwise. If there are normal conditions, we will have to try not to lose too many points compared to the best: we hope to do it like in Australia and Malaysia...

Now I'm here in Italy for a few days to do some routine medical checks at the Physiology Center in Forlì, where my trainer Fabrizio Borra reigns supreme. Two or three times a year we do medical and physical checks to see the state of shape and keep the entire body under control. Then I will return home to Spain to see the family and spend a few days with them. We need a bit of relaxation after a race as demanding as the one in Sepang and then I will refine my preparations in view of another double, the China-Bahrain one, characterized by long journeys and changes in time zones. Of course, I left while it was still winter and, after three weeks, we are already in full spring: a nice change!

These have been my first few weeks on Twitter and I have to say it's a very pleasant experience. It was something I wanted to do for a while and I dedicated myself to it with commitment, personally. In recent months I had seen that there was a lot of talk about me on the Internet and on social media so I thought that maybe it would be better to actually be there, right? So I can tell from my point of view what my life is, what I do when I'm around the world to run, trying to make people understand what my feelings really are. Nothing technical, because after all Formula 1 remains a sport where confidentiality on certain topics remains important, but more a way to describe what surrounds the activity of someone who does my job. For now it's very nice, especially reading all the messages my "followers" write to me, the suggestions they send me: I don't reply because I would spend the whole day doing so but I read them all and I will try to improve in the next tweets. I must say that I was very surprised first of all by the number of "followers" I immediately had. When I posted the first video I was making a stopover in Doha before going to Australia and in the lounge we had a bet with my manager and Edoardo, my physiotherapist, on how many would sign up to my account before departure: I said a thousand, Luis nineteenth century and Edoardo six hundred. Well, after four hours, on takeoff for Melbourne, there were thirty-nine thousand! Then there is the enthusiasm: there are so many messages, all positive and I must say that they give me a great boost.