Spaniard believes he has pace to fight Mercedes and Red Bull after Ferrari shake off season of mediocrity to challenge in qualy
Saturday 20 September 2014 18:08, UK
Fernando Alonso is confident of challenging the two Mercedes and Red Bull cars starting ahead of him in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.
The Spaniard topped two of the three practice sessions at the Marina Bay Circuit, but slipped to fifth when it mattered most in qualifying.
It will be the fifth time this season that the Ferrari driver has lined-up fifth, but on this occasion, with Mercedes pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton only two-tenths faster, Alonso wasn’t disappointed with the performance from his F14 T and feels the team may have turned a corner.
“We have been competitive in all free practice sessions as we normally are, then in the qualifying we normally lose some time, but today we remained competitive in qualy so that is very good news,” the two-times World Champion told Sky Sports F1.
“At the end the position is fifth which is usually the same about fifth, but it is a very different fifth as we are only two tenths from pole position. So I am definitely happy and I think this gives us an opportunity to fight tomorrow with the leaders, which we are not used to, but tomorrow we have this opportunity and hopefully we can finish this weekend in a good manner.”
Asked how he plans to challenge the Mercedes cars which have been dominant this season, the Spaniard revealed he is eyeing running in a podium position by Turn One on Sunday, making the start essential viewing.
“We will get a good start and overtake two or three cars and then we will play with the strategy,” he explained.
“I think tyre degradation will be very important, we saw yesterday in the long run that it is quite big and we need to have the tyres alive at important parts of the race and push on those laps.”
Whilst Alonso was pleased with his performance, his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was left ruing what might have been after an electrical problem forced him out of Q3 when the Finn felt a front-row start was a possibility.
“I really thought that [a front-row was possible] if everything had run smoothly,” the 2007 champion said.
“We struggled a bit at the beginning of the weekend and then we changed the car and it was pretty good and more to my liking and I could drive it as I wanted. But then we got hit with a problem which is a shame as I felt we could have done a very good job today.”
The Finn has disappointed in 2014 with only one top five-finish to his name, but having topped Q1, he may have the chance to add to that tally should the Scuderia manage to fix his car overnight without incurring any parc ferme penalties.
The 2014 Singapore GP is live only on Sky Sports F1 this weekend. Our race-day coverage begins at 11.30am on Sunday with lights out at Marina Bay at 1pm.
