Fernando Alonso has admitted that Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel is out of reach given his perfect start to the season.
The German has taken both pole positions and both race wins, bagging 50 points in the process, 24 more than Jenson Button in second and 30 more than Alonso in fifth.
Whilst the gap to Vettel may be ‘too far for now’, the Spaniard takes some consolation from the fact he was faster than McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in the latter stages.
“I was disappointed not to get to the podium in Malaysia, as it was within my reach and it would have been a great result,” he told the Ferrari website.
“We paid a very heavy price for the failure on the system that runs the moveable rear wing. If the system had worked, I could comfortably have got past [Lewis] Hamilton on the pit straight and I would not have found myself having to fight him wheel to wheel and taking risks.
“As we had already seen in Australia, once again in Malaysia, our race pace was much better than that in qualifying. In Sepang, both Felipe and I were running at a pace good enough to get to the podium and that was an important indication, even if we did not end up getting all we could have done.
“Clearly, I would like to always be fighting for the win but, at the moment, one car, Vettel’s Red Bull, seems to be out of reach.”
The Ferrari team will introduce further updates in a bid to further close the gap, especially in qualifying, which Alonso hopes will translate into more points.
“In Shanghai, we are due to try a new front wing and a few other aero updates: let’s hope they bring us something, but we will have to evaluate them very carefully in Friday’s practice.
“Our aim in this Grand Prix will be similar to the one in Malaysia, which means to make the best of qualifying and try to exploit any opportunity that comes our way during the race.”
