Fernando Alonso hoping to close gap to Red Bull Racing Team at the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix
According to a recent statement by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, he is hoping to close the gap to Red Bull Racing Team at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Red Bull have been dominating the season up until now and they are currently leading the 2011 championship by a considerable margin.
Alonso on the other hand scored his first podium of the 2011 Formula 1 season at the Turkish Grand Prix two weeks ago and he is now expecting his car to be even quicker this weekend.
“We had new parts in Turkey and made a step forward, and we have the second stage of those parts here. We are optimistic and confident and we intend to be fighting with them soon,” he said in the press conference on Thursday.
He believes that Ferrari have been focusing on improving their pace in order to score better performances during the qualifying sessions particularly. According to the Spaniard’s results this season, he has not been able to score a lap within 8 tenths of
a second of Sebastian Vettel’s lap times which have been the pole position taking times at all the four races so far.
Nevertheless, he is optimistic as he believes that anything can happen in Formula 1.
“Anything can happen in Formula One. For sure, Red Bull has been very dominant in the first part of the championship. It was difficult to beat them in the race, and nearly impossible to beat them in qualifying. But we want to change this, starting here in
Barcelona,” he said.
Statistically, Circuit de Catalunya has been one of the strongest tracks for Red Bull since Mark Webber scored a pole position taking more than 9 tenths of a second faster than Alonso in 2010.
“It's true the gap was one second last year - and this year it was even more than that at some tracks,” the Spaniard admitted.
It would be disappointing for the two-time world champion if he does not score a better performance this time during the qualifying session as he has started all four races from 5th place on the grid this season so far.
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