Fernando Alonso claims it is still too early to truly assess Ferrari’s pace compared to that of its rivals, Red Bull and McLaren.
The Spaniard was fourth quickest on Wednesday, just behind Sebastian Vettel and ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but with teams running different strategies and fuel loads, it’s difficult to decipher the times.
Alonso doesn’t believe Ferrari are the quickest, but he’s certain they’re not the slowest.
“I remember last year in the first tests we did a race distance on the final day and we were 1.5 seconds behind Red Bull in Australia,” he said. “So a race distance is always welcome, but I prefer to have a performing car and to find reliability, than to have a strong car that is slow.”
When asked if he believes Ferrari will be challenging for the win at the season opener in Australia, he told Autosport: “We’ll see. I think it is too early to say.
“At the moment we don’t know exactly where we are. I think maybe we are not the fastest but definitely we are not the slowest – so we need to wait and see, especially in the final test.
“With hotter temperatures in Australia etc we will see how the cars work and in Q3 there is the time to see where you in Melbourne.”
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