Alonso unfazed by Ferrari's stunted fightback

Sunday 1st November 2009

Fernando Alonso says he's not at all worried by Ferrari's inability to truly fight back from their early season woes as he prepares to swap over to the Scuderia.

Ferrari recorded their worst start to a season in 20 years as they failed to score a single point in the opening three races of this year's Championship.

And although the Italian marque did launch a minor fightback midway through the campaign, securing five successive podium finishes including a race win for Kimi Raikkonen, their form faltered again as they opted instead to focus their attention on next year's car.

Ferrari's late-season form is in sharp contrast to McLaren's, who, despite also starting on the backfoot, have improved as the campaign progressed as they worked out their issues with the MP4-24.

And although one wouldn't be surprised if there were concerns in the Alonso camp over Ferrari's demise, the 2010 Ferrari driver insists he's not at all worried.

"No, not at all," he told the official website when asked if he was worried inability to fight back from their early season woes.

"Both started at the back during this season. I think McLaren started even worst, and now they have possibly the best car on the grid.

"Here they have been very dominant throughout the weekend, and also in Brazil, where they only had problems during qualifying with the too wet conditions. In the end Hamilton finished on the podium in Brazil.

"McLaren have pushed with some new developments for this year during the season, and Ferrari did not.

"If you compare this with last season, we were on the podium in Brazil, and everybody thought that Renault would have a very strong car this year.

"So the last races do not mean a lot in general. So I think every first race is completely unknown for everybody."

Your Comments

ARNETT

"Do we all agree, next year's winners come from an Anglo design team - whoever's National Anthem get's played ? "

pasikuikka

"I don't think Ferrari is using "clever language to pretent" anything. The 3rd place in constructors was important to them and up to their grabs and lost to McLaren in the end by only 1 point."

raza

"ferrari has been running(testing) next years componants in the car all summer..., they have mentioned this a number of times...it is common knowledge. they did stop throwing money and effort at the '09 car back in early July when the Brawn lead was so massive.

with no re-fueling next season this will create weight distribution problems that they are probably already addressing. any predictions for next year are merely speculations, who would have thought a year ago that brawn and Red Bull would have fielded such great cars for this year? Honda money? Gray area rule interpretation? perhaps, who can say... but never the less they produced an almost perfect car and when it arrived it was a reality check for the rest of the grid...true Ross Brawn genius. They also proved that any team can quickly become competative...any team at all. With that in mind I will be interested in seeing the new Williams...they have had a good aero package, the engine has not produced winning power...we shall see."

chickv

"Next year will be a good year with Alonso doing a Maclaren in the Ferrari camp. But will Ferrari's Todt do the Mad Max stunt by putting marshall in Ferrari garage to protect Alonso? :-)))) "

All comments on this story