Fernando Alonso believes shift from Bridgestone to Pirelli painless for Ferrari
The Ferrari driver, Fernando Alonso is as happy and optimistic as he could be following his success in giving a brilliant performance at the Abu Dhabi track earlier this week with the new Pirelli tyres, making him look forward to a very exciting 2011
season.
The Italian tyre manufacturer, Pirelli is all set to return to Formula One next year after an absence of 19 seasons. The sport, till the last week was attached with Bridgestone, which acted as the sole tyre supplier to all the teams all through the
season until the last race held in Abu Dhabi earlier this month.
The start of next Formula One season in March 2011 is going to see Pirelli take the place of Bridgestone as the only tyre supplier to the sport. At this time when many of the other drivers and teams are concerned and anticipating to see how the cars
and the tracks will react with the new rubber, Alonso seems very positive believing that the shift from Bridgestone to Pirelli is going to be painless for the Italian team.
After hosting the second successful Grand Prix on its soil, the Yas Marina Track of Abu Dhabi, unfolded two days of driving tests. The 3rd place finisher of the 2010 Constructors’ Championship, Ferrari was successful in topping
on both the days. The first day saw the team driver, Felipe Massa as the pace setter while the other team driver, Alonso was marked the fastest man as the second day of testing ended.
The other drivers as well as the other teams also admit that the pace of Ferrari, on both Friday and Saturday's sessions, was very impressive. This is the first time, since Pirelli signed with the sport, that all the teams got the opportunity of testing
the new rubber on the track.
While comparing the pace of some other teams who were also very quick on the track, the Spanish driver, Alonso said that the Ferrari has an obvious edge on many of its competitors. He said that the transition to the new tyres has gone better than he
thought.
The two times world champion explained saying, "We had no particular problems with the Pirelli tyres and we were able to gather a lot of data for their engineers to work on.”
He further added, "We are pleased with the way we worked and in how we were able to adapt the set-up of the car to suit the new tyres, especially in terms of the work we can do on the new car in preparation for next season.”
Tags: