European GP: Post Race Interview With Fernando Alonso

Question: Fernando, for some laps it was just you and your Ferrari. Though for many laps it was you, your car and Mark very close on the track. It was a great battle with Mark that you had.

Fernando Alonso: Yeah, it was I think an interesting race for the fans, for the people on TV to see the fight with Webber all the race through. At the beginning of the race I was behind him, trying to be not too far and trying to have the benefit in the pit-stop and have the opportunity to overtake him. The opportunity came later on in the middle of the race but on the track not in the pits so I overtook him on the braking for turn 12. On the pit they did a good job again and overtook us and then in the last pit-stop I think the team did a very good strategy, keeping the car out with the soft tyres for a couple of laps longer than the Red Bull, and the car performed very well and we overtook him finally on the stops. We changed positions between Mark and me and in the end second place is the maximum we can have this day so being here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievement from the team. Monaco was a very good performance all weekend. We finished second. Canada was a very good performance. We didn’t score any points there and here again very good weekend in terms of performance Felipe (Massa) and me and now both cars in the top five is a great team result so definitely moving in the right direction. We need to keep working and be even closer to these guys in the next grand prix.

Question: Fernando, Ferrari have given you your first podium on this Valencia street circuit. But you will be hungry for more I am sure and pushing the team in your desire to win races.

Fernando Alonso: Yeah, definitely. We all in Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro know that our tifosi are expecting us to win. At the moment we are not in that position but we are getting much closer. In the first three or four races of the championship we were on average 1.5 seconds in qualifying behind Red Bull, now we are on average six or seven tenths so we have closed by half the gap. But it is still another half. We will never stop working until we reach first position in terms of performance of the car so they can be very calm about our effort that it will be always 100 per cent. First podium in Valencia. I missed this trophy. At home I have trophies from all Formula One circuits I race apart from Abu Dhabi and India, obviously we race there this year, so now that I have here in Valencia obviously Abu Dhabi and India will be the next target to complete the collection.

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Question: Fernando, great to hear that you get so much satisfaction from second place especially after the luck you have had here in the last few years.

Fernando Alonso: Yeah, I think podium here was the target and it was a personal target to get the trophy here in Valencia to enjoy the champagne and the celebrations after the race. I miss it in the last races here. We didn’t have the chance with Renault in 2008 and 2009 and last year we had a difficult race with safety cars et cetera, so finally with a normal race we get this chance to be on the podium. To celebrate this fantastic weekend. I think it has been for the fans a good race, not only on the track and here on the circuit. I think there has been a lot of events, concerts, things like that all weekend. I think all the city of Valencia has welcomed Formula One in a very good way. People enjoy and this is the best result we can achieve now for them, for the Spanish fans, for the supporters, and obviously we keep working to win one race hopefully soon.

Question: You beat one Red Bull. Can you beat two?

Fernando Alonso: Well I think we need to be realistic knowing that our pace now is not enough to win races or be on pole position. But there is a clear trend, a clear direction that is moving forward and we did some good steps in the car. We were, as I said in the press conference, 1.5 seconds on average in the first three or four races of the championship. Now maybe we have halved the gap. We need to wait for Silverstone, Nurburgring, circuits that are more normal circuits, not only straights and big braking. But we are confident that we have understood our problems. The wind tunnel problems we had at the beginning of the year so now all the parts we put on the car, all the ideas that we have, we know now they are working so that is definitely a positive thing. What we can do on the track side, drivers, engineers, mechanics, is to deliver. It is to do clean races with no mistakes, good starts, good strategy as we see today. I know there was a lot of criticism about the strategy in Canada, putting on the intermediate tyres and then it rained. But I think that is more bad luck than wrong strategy. In terms of strategy today we did very well. We overtook one Red Bull at the end and hopefully that will be in the papers tomorrow as well.

Question: And a great start from both Ferraris today.

Fernando Alonso: Yeah. Well, I wasn’t 100 per cent happy with my start. Obviously we knew that the wrong side of the grid here is quite bad so I lost ground with Felipe who was fifth and also Jenson was very close to me, so I was sixth. I think the first 100metres of the start was not very good, but in the first corner, everybody seemed to brake very early this time, so I took the benefit from it.

Question: Fernando, I don’t think you’re very happy about your race, but for a lot of people you have to have had a very good race in your car. Why are you not very happy today? That’s the impression you give.

Fernando Alonso: I think I said in the press conference that I am very happy. I have repeated a couple of times that this is a very special podium. I also said in the press conference that I missed podiums here, Abu Dhabi and India. I can cross out here, and hopefully I can get a podium in Abu Dhabi and India as well and complete all the trophies from the Formula One calendar. Definitely this Valencia was one of the most special races, to be in the celebration at the end of the race, and we did it. So far it’s the best result of the year and the best podium of the year.

Question: Fernando, were you worried at the end of the race when you took on medium tyres; you might have lost position to Webber because in free practice you were slower than them on this kind of tyre?

Fernando Alonso: Yeah, obviously in practice I think we were more competitive with the soft tyre compared to the medium tyres, so as we said yesterday, we tried to minimise the time with the harder tyre in the race because we knew that maybe we were less competitive. But it was the time to stop. Obviously we had two or three extra laps compared to him with soft but if you don’t stop you lose the position so we had to stop and be in front of him in the first corner, and then the game is on, so you need to hope that the pace is good enough and I think it was a good surprise, how the car performed in the last stint. We were expecting a lot of trouble, a lot of problems with the level of grip and in fact I think our best laps of the race were at the end on the medium tyre, so that’s also very encouraging for the next races.

Question: Fernando, when you passed Mark during the first stint, and then you came out a second behind him, was it because you waited a lap too long? On TV it looked like you had a bit problem coming out.

Fernando Alonso: No, I think when you are one second, 1.5s gap between two cars, the car that stops has the advantage because the whole lap will be around two seconds quicker. We knew when Mark stopped that we obviously had to stop the lap after, but our chance of being in front was not great, and I also think we had a lot of problems with backmarkers, problems of traffic. Obviously it’s not easy to let cars past on this circuit, there are two walls on this long straight which isn’t really straight, there’s always a little bit of corner. I think we all lost time - maybe I lost time in this middle part of the race. I know Mark lost time with one of the Hispania cars at the end. At the end of the race it balances out but when you are in a pit stop area, or when it’s pit stop laps, it’s very important.

Question: Fernando, you seem to be truly happy today about your result but you’re 99 points behind Sebastian Vettel. When will you stop hoping to fight for the title? Is it already the case?

Fernando Alonso: Well, I think I’m happy with the performance and the team moving forward from a difficult start to the season. Obviously the championship is not in our calculations at the moment, so not in our hands, so we need to do it race by race, try to win the races we go to and wait for some mistakes from Red Bull. At the moment, I don’t think we can think of the championship in a proper way. We just need to take it race by race and see what happens in the last part of the season. The distance now with 99 points, a hundred or whatever, is a lot so it’s not in our hands. At the moment, as we said, we’re one second behind, or eight tenths behind so if anyone thinks we can win a championship being eight tenths behind it’s because maybe they don’t understand Formula One.

Question: Fernando, we know that Ferrari is going to Silverstone with some upgrades. Which is the main thing you ask for from the team, the thing you need most?

Fernando Alonso: Aerodynamics. I don’t think that it’s a secret what we are lacking. What Formula One needs these days is aero performance. We can be more or less competitive in these circuits where there are not high speed corners with heavy braking on the straights. The tyres are the same for everybody, brakes are no different, engines are more or less the same, KERS we all use, so it’s all about aerodynamics. As I said, these days everybody knows about our problems during the winter and we were putting parts on the car which didn’t make the car quicker, slower and when we realised that was Malaysia. Now we are a couple of months behind.

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