Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso firmly believes that the Italian outfit is back at the front of the grid for good, following their win in Silverstone and strong showing during practice on Friday.
The Spaniard topped the first session but fell to second, just a couple of tenths of Mark Webber, but ahead of Sebastian Vettel.
The 29-year-old says today’s pace confirms their British GP form wasn’t down to the regulations changes, which have now been reversed.
“First impressions from the car are good, which confirms that we are working in the right direction,” said Alonso after practice in Germany.
“I’ve said it before, it’s not a case of a miracle having happened at Silverstone, because of the regulations relating to the exhausts,” he urged. “That result was down to the many improvements introduced race after race, as could be seen from the fact that, even from Monaco, we had returned to a good level in terms of being competitive and here too, where we are back to the Valencia rules, we are at the front end of the field.”
Whilst they might not be as quick as Red Bull, he says the next two races will confirm whether thay are second quickest, ahead of McLaren who have won two races this season, compared to Ferraris one.
“We need to confirm in the next two races that we are quicker than McLaren,” he said. “We were quicker than McLaren in Silverstone and we don’t know here. Today maybe they were testing some different things and we need to see tomorrow in qualifying how quick they are.”
