Alonso: We won’t know where Ferrari stands until Melbourne

During the event organised by the Santander Bank in Madrid, Fernando Alonso obviously spoke at length about the weeks of preparation prior to the start of the World Championship, although he repeated much of what he had already said at the tests.

“We will only really know where we stand compared to the others when we are in Melbourne,” said the Spanish driver. “At the moment, I am happy because we proved to have a reliable car. If all goes to plan, we will be in the group of teams capable of fighting for the title, along with Red Bull the reigning champions, McLaren, Mercedes and also Renault, who had already made a step forward towards the end of last season. Even Toro Rosso has made significant progress.”

As usual, tyres were centre stage. “From what we have seen so far, degradation is very significant, which means we will have races with lots of pit stops,” continued Fernando. “I’m not keen on that because I think this increased uncertainty does not favour the strongest teams: it’s as if in football, it was decided to have a penalty per team each half hour in which case Barcelona and Real Madrid would not be jumping for joy. However, the situation is the same for everyone: it will be important to be fastest because I don’t think we can make one stop less than our main rivals.”