British GP News: Ferrari's Fernando Alonso hopeful of a good performance at Silverstone
Former World Champion Fernando Alonso felt fairly optimistic ahead of the race at Silverstone as the Spaniard feels that although the track might not suit the Ferrari F10 as such, he is still hopeful of getting a good result and moving forward in his title charge.
Ferrari started the season with an incredible result at Bahrain when the team finished at the first and second position. It also handed Fernando Alonso his first race win in Ferrari colours; putting him alongside the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Giancarlo Baghetti, Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell and Kimi Raikkonen as the only men to have won for Ferrari in their debut race. The qualifying session marked the surprising progress that the Red Bulls had made with their 2010 car. In the race, it was Vettel who was the out and out leader who never seemed to be in trouble against Ferrari. Even though it was Felipe Massa in the sister Ferrari who was alongside Vettel in the second position on the grid, it was Alonso who moved to second after the first turn. It was only in the latter stages of the race that Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull Racing ran into problems with one of its spark plugs that caused the car to lose pace. This resulted in gifting the Ferraris with the first and second places.
That has thus far been the best result of the season for Ferrari but things have only gone downhill from there. The European Grand Prix at Valencia was a step forward from their slump though. The team had made upgrades that would allow them to cope with high speed corners. This was an area of the car that was hampering their progress as compared to the McLarens and the Red Bulls. This caused Ferrari to fall down to the third place in the Constructors Championship behind Red Bull Racing. Alonso has now fallen to the fifth place in the Drivers Championship and is now 29 points behind race leader Lewis Hamilton.
But in the race in Valencia, Hamilton was unfortunate with the safety car incident which ruined their race. Alonso had qualified in the fourth place for the race with his teammate Massa in the fifth. By the first corner, Alonso was up to the third behind Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. Massa was following close behind in the fourth place. But when the safety car came out, the two Ferraris were at the front of the queue as Lewis Hamilton overtook the safety car just when he was coming out from the pits. When the race restarted, Alonso was slotted in the ninth place and ended up finishing the race in the right position while Massa was outside the top ten and did not score any points.
Despite their troubles, Alonso seems quite optimistic about the races to come. The drivers head to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix 2010 in a few days time. He believes that the updates that came for the Valencia circuit helped them take a step in the right direction and thinks that the new updates that they have for Silverstone will also help. Alonso feels that this is a circuit that is not suited to the style of the Ferrari F10 car but feels that they still have it in them to put in a good performance. Since this is also a track that is often affected by rain, the race could have a twist and requires the teams and drivers to think on their feet to cope with the changing conditions. It was the rain in Australia that provided the season with the first bit of entertainment. It was Jenson Button who was able to take advantage of the conditions and dive into the pits and change to slick tyres before anyone else did.
The upgrades will be crucial to Ferraris chances in the Championship as the busy part of the season starts. The drivers will head to Germany in two weeks time after finishing with the grand prix’s in Britain and Hungry. If team Ferrari can’t improve at Silverstone, chances are that this will have a domino effect that will cause them to go backwards as the races will creep up on them one after the other. On the other hand, if they work hard in Britain, Ferrari might gather the momentum they need to get their title ambitions back on track.
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