Fernando Alonso hoping for competitive car at upcoming races
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, has recently stated that after scoring his first podium of the 2011 Formula 1 season at the Turkish Grand Prix, he is now confident that his team can provide him with a car that can enable him to compete alongside the top running
teams of the sport including Red Bull Racing Team and McLaren for this year’s drivers’ title.
The team had a pretty disastrous start to the 2011 Formula 1 season despite the fact that they had a pretty decent pre-season testing period. However, after scoring third place for his team at Istanbul Park, the Spaniard believes that his team has the potential
to squeeze out some pace from its car during the European phase of this season.
“It was about time because we'd missed out on finishing a race in the top three for too long. But what was especially important was to fight for the top places until the end”, Alonso told the media.
The team has been unable to improve its pace up until now, as Fernando started the Turkish race from 5th place on the grid for the fourth time in a row this season. Ferrari is quite reliable and they have a good pace during the race but they have
not been able to score some fast times during qualifying sessions, as a result of which, they have been struggling to deliver a good overall performance.
Alonso stated that the team should try its best to further improve its car in order to challenge for the titles more actively. However, he added that this podium was very important for the team.
“But we certainly can't be happy with a third place and what matters most is that we must be much more competitive in qualifying. If we always start from the third row, or, lower it's a struggle to fight for the podium”, said the Spaniard.
Other than that, he revealed that Ferrari has some upgrades lined up for the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix, which will allow the team to take an important step forward in qualifying sessions.
The 2 time Formula 1 champion is now feeling quite confident as he believes that the team has been improving comparatively and they are striving to achieve better results in the near future.
Alonso is currently 52 points adrift of the current drivers’ standings leader, Sebastian Vettel, who is leading the pack by 93 points. Last year, Fernando lost the championship lead to the young German at the 2010 Formula 1 season’s grand finale that took
place in Abu Dhabi, which was disappointing for him and his team.
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