Fernando Alonso believes improvements to his Ferrari will boost the Spaniard’s chances of success at the European Grand Prix in Valencia this weekend.
“We will have major updates on the F10, which I hope will allow us to up our performance level,” Alonso said on his blog on the Ferrari website ahead of Sunday’s race.
The two—time world champion drove impressively to finish behind Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button at the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this month.
It left him fourth in the overall standings with 94 points, trailing Mark Webber (103), Button (106) and Hamilton (109). With only 15 points separating the top four drivers, the world championship is wide open.
If Ferrari’s vaunted aerodynamics improvement delivers, Alonso and teammate Felipe Massa, eighth in the standings, should be major contenders on the Valencia street circuit. With a home crowd roaring him on, Alonso is hopeful of a first win since the opening race of the year, in Bahrain in March.
“In the first eight races of the season all sorts of things happened ”mistakes, reliability problems, bad luck” but we are still in the thick of the fight for both championships (drivers’ and constructors’),” Alonso said.
Ferrari’s morale will also have been boosted by the recruitment of former McLaren engineer Pat Fry, who joins the Italian team on July 1.
However, in the McLaren camp, Hamilton and Button have reason to be optimistic.
The British drivers scored their second one—two finish in a row in Montreal, with Hamilton taking the chequered flag for the second race in succession after also winning in Turkey in May.
“As a team, we’ve taken maximum points in the last two races and it feels like we’ve really gathered considerable momentum,” said defending world champion Button.
He sees the Valencia circuit playing to McLaren’s strengths. “Even though it’s a street circuit, it’s got quite a different feel to other street tracks, like Monte Carlo or Singapore,” he said.
“For a start, it’s quite a bit faster {hbox}” there are some low—speed corners with some fairly unforgiving walls at the apex, but there are also some high—speed changes of direction and some long straights, so it’s quite an interesting place, set—up wise. It’s not as if you completely rely on downforce, there’s a trade—off, and that should suit our package.”
Hamilton, who finished second in Valencia on both its Grand Prix debut in 2008 and last year, says he has “some unfinished business” to settle there.
He also suggested it will be a good race for spectators. “It’s not a circuit where we’ve seen too much passing in the past, but I think this year could be different,” he said. “The grid is so tight, there were battles all through the field in Montreal last week, so I think we could have a close and exciting race this year.”
At the Turkish Grand Prix on May 30, the most publicized battle was between Red Bull’s drivers, with Sebastian Vettel spinning out of the race after making contact with teammate Mark Webber while trying to pass him for the lead.
Red Bull has since worked hard to play down the costly clash, after which Webber finished third. However, both drivers will remain under scrutiny in Valencia to see how team unity is holding up.
Red Bull still has plenty to fight for as the season’s midpoint approaches, and the team will look to recover the form that saw it claim the first seven poles of the season. Third—place Webber is aiming to become the first Australian world champion since Alan Jones in 1980. Vettel is 19 points off the lead in fifth.
Seven—time world champion Michael Schumacher has had a more difficult season, finishing 11th in Canada to leave him ninth in the standings. Although this will be his first race on the Valencia circuit, he has promised an improvement on recent races.
“We will bring further updates for our car, which should help to improve the performance,” the Mercedes driver said. “We have already seen that the car has improved steadily over the last few races and in Canada, the pace was better even if unfortunately that did not show in the results.”
