Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso upbeat about team’s chances in remainder of 2011 Formula 1 season
Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso was upbeat about his team’s chances in the upcoming races of the 2011 Formula 1 season.
He claimed that the team will bounce back strongly after a bad start to the season. Ferrari are currently positioned at number three in the constructors’ championship with 50 points from three races.
A confident Alonso stated, “I trust in the team: I know what it's made of and I can feel the will to fight back from everyone at Maranello. In the past I have experienced, first as an opponent and then as an insider how capable the Scuderia is of staging
a comeback.”
He further added, “I well remember when I was at Renault in 2006, that in the first part of the season I had built up a big lead but then Ferrari made such a good job of developing its cars that [Michael] Schumacher staged a great fight back, overtaking
me with two races remaining.”
The Spaniard also gave an example of 2010 where he seemed to be out of the contention for the drivers’ championship until the mid part of the season. However, there was a strong fight back by the team and Alonso almost clinched the title. He went into the
final race of 2010 as the championship leader, but was unable to finish when it was required the most.
Alonso said that nothing can be predicted in Formula 1 and it would be too early to write off his team. He said that McLaren were not expected to be strong this year after their struggle in the pre-season testing, but the team did a great job to match the
reigning champions Red Bull.
Sebastian Vettel was considered as unmatched by many, but things changed in the Chinese Grand Prix. McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton did a terrific job, winning the race by a comfortable margin of more than five seconds.
However, the race was yet again disappointing for Ferrari as the team failed to score a podium for the third time in a row. Alonso was well aware of all the issues with the team and claimed to be working hard with the engineers in order to make a strong
comeback.
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