Alonso: better prepared now than before Australia

As inevitably as night follows day, for his home race, Fernando Alonso was called to attend the official FIA press conference at the Catalunya circuit this afternoon. If the media were keen to write about a “completely new Ferrari car in Spain,” the man from Oviedo was quick to disabuse them of this notion. “Our car is not really very different to before,” he began. “We don’t have big improvements although we do have some new parts. At Mugello during the test we mainly worked on trying different set-ups and other things we were not able to work on during pre-season testing, so it was a case of completing our winter work. Some of the things we tried in Mugello worked well, others less so."

As to whether the F2012 would be more competitive here in Spain, Fernando was guardedly optimistic. “We are definitely better prepared now than we were before Australia,” he revealed. "We have some new aero parts and other updates, but we will have to wait and see where we are after the race. Because we are Ferrari, there seem to be a lot of expectations, but the other teams have also developed their cars. What we have here in Barcelona is not the last step and we must continue to improve our performance for qualifying and the race in Monaco, in Canada and the following races. This is just the first step of many and if it is not enough, then we must work harder for Monaco and be even more aggressive in our approach. We will never give up in May, after just four races!”

Fernando agreed with fellow panellist Kimi Raikkonen who said that qualifying was less important than in the past. “He is right,” said the Ferrari man. "I have looked at the numbers and in previous years at this track, you would get four or five passing moves in the Grand Prix, but last year there were 57. In the past here, getting pole was 60% of the win but that is no longer the case.”

And what could he promise the Spanish fans who will be here in their thousands over the weekend. “I can promise them nothing,” he admitted. “As always we will give 100%, but Formula 1 is not mathematics, it is a sport. We will try our best, work hard on every detail and hopefully get the best result possible.”