Alonso ready for another three races in four weeks

Fernando Alonso had his first meeting of the weekend with the press this afternoon and for the first time this season, now that the European leg of the championship is underway, it took place in the Scuderia Ferrari media hospitality unit in the paddock. However, as the Spaniard explained the pattern of races is similar. “We’ve had three weeks to recover from the first three races and now I am ready for another three races in four weeks, which follows the same pattern as the start of the season, with one race on its own and then two races one week after the other,” explained Fernando. “We will hopefully score more points in these three than in the first three. Last season we lost points at the beginning and then we recovered in the last part and we got close to winning the championship at the final race. This year we are currently losing points and we are aware there is some distance to the leaders. But it is much earlier in the season than last year when we only started to recover at Silverstone around race eleven or so and now this is only race four so there is still plenty of time.”

The Scuderia has revealed it will run new front and rear wings and new brake ducts here in Turkey, but Fernando was keen to explain that the media and the fans should not expect miracles. “We know that the new parts we have here will improve the car compared to China: it should be worth a couple of tenths per lap but it is not a revolutionary change,” he said. “We will not change the car completely in just one race. Step by step we must close the gap and we are very happy with the work we did over these last three weeks, but we need to wait, probably until qualifying to see how much of the gap we have closed, given that we can expect the other teams to have also made progress. It will be a good motivation for everyone in the team if we can do well here. For my part, I did what I could in the break, working in the simulator, which is the most a driver can do really to help the team. I am sure we will recover very soon and hopefully here in Turkey, we can see the first signs of some positive results.”

One journalist keen on analysing every aspect of the races pointed out to Alonso that he had not had good opening laps at the first three races this year. “It’s true,” admitted the Ferrari man. “I had clutch problems in China that caused a very slow start, I had a very slow reaction in Malaysia that cost me some places and in Australia, when I was close to having the best start of the grid, Petrov pushed Jenson to the outside and Jenson had to push me to get away from Petrov, so you could say we need to make sure there are no clutch problems, I must improve my reactions and we need to improve our luck factor at the start!

Finally, Fernando was asked about his friend Robert Kubica. “We all miss Robert,” affirmed the Spaniard. “That is the feeling I first had in Australia and when we did the driver group picture there, as is the tradition at the first race, we all had this feeling that someone was missing. We hope he makes a quick recovery and I spoke to him three days ago: he is doing well, even if it is not an easy recovery, but I am sure he will be with us, maybe this year and no doubt next year.”