Alonso: very, very confident in the car

With the rain beating down on the roof of the Scuderia Ferrari Media Hospitality unit, Fernando Alonso’s German Grand Prix weekend started in the usual way, answering questions from the media. Performance in Silverstone was the main topic and one journalist asked if the good top speed seen in England had come at a price, compromising the car in slow sections. “No, that was not the case,” began the Spaniard. “We have been working very hard in the past two weeks since Silverstone to bring some extra parts to the Nurburgring and we expect to have some in Hungary next week. But at Silverstone we did not need to compromise ourselves in the slow speed corners, because all the aero updates we brought there improved the car in the high speed corners and when you also bring some new mechanical updates, you improve the performance in slow corners as well.”

Fernando, like everyone at Ferrari, was delighted with the British Grand Prix victory, but he is still realistic about what it means in terms of the World Championship titles. “We face difficulties in terms of the championship this year because of the points lost earlier, but we will not give up,” he said. “We will try and win races and wait for some mistakes from Red Bull and when we reach the key point of the championship, we will see if we are still too far behind. We are having a good championship now and we will try to keep doing the same. We have, I think, 32 points more than last year from these same nine races, so we are definitely improving our results, always trying to do our best. But we have to accept that Red Bull was very, very dominant in the first half. There is nothing we can do about that now except work hard and keep enjoying every Sunday. Then, at the end we will see where we are.”

As to where the improvement came from that delivered the much needed win, Fernando was clear that the credit should go to everyone within the company that had worked so hard, without giving up. “Silverstone was an important boost for the team after difficult times,” he said. “Prior to that, we had brought a lot of new parts, some of which worked and others that did not. Then in the last four or five races, every new part we brought has worked fine, which is definitely good news, not just for this year but for future development for next year. I am very, very confident in the car, the engine and all our designers are very motivated now, knowing that everything they did, working day and night is producing good results on Sunday.”