Fernando Alonso has warned Ferrari that they cannot let their second unlikely win of the season cloud the fact that they still don't have the quickest car.
Valencia winner says Ferrari must continue to work hard to improve
Fernando Alonso has warned Ferrari that they must not lose sight of the fact that they still trail some of their rivals on outright pace despite having become the first repeat winners this season.
The Spanish superstar claimed his second unlikely race victory of 2012 in Valencia on Sunday, combining some impressive overtaking moves with Ferrari's swift pit stops to come through from 11th to first place on a track that in the past has been universally criticised for producing dull racing.
With his nearest pre-race championships rivals Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton retiring, Alonso's 29th career win meant he opened up the biggest lead at the top of the Drivers' Championship of anyone so far this season - 20 points, which is nearly the equivalent of a race victory.
However, despite being delighted with the result, Alonso says Ferrari must remain humble and realise that despite big recent progress their disappointing double Q2 elimination on Saturday showed there was still plenty of work to be done to improve the F2012's overall performance.
"I think we always need to be cautious and we always need to be honest with ourselves first and with our supporters, saying that we will fight, will work day and night to be competitive and to fight for the title which is the ultimate goal for Ferrari," he said.
"Any championship in which we participate, the championship should be the target, regarding the history and the level of the team.
"But yesterday we were P11 and P13 so we need to work. It's true that we believe and we will never give up, we will have confidence in ourselves and we will arrive with optimism at every Grand Prix we go to, but at the same time, apart from winning today or finishing sixth today, we know that we are not in the position that we want to be and there are a few cars quicker than us and we cannot be blind to that. We need to work."
Although Alonso hailed his second ever F1 success on Spanish soil as the most emotional of his career, particularly as the country is currently gripped by an economic crisis, he reckons he may have actually given better performances himself on the race track given he enjoyed some good fortune en-route to his latest win.
"In terms of the race itself, or driving, probably they were a little better," he said.
"We pushed, but as we said, these days races are decided by little factors and today we had retirements from Grosjean then from Vettel. We had the tyres, the safety car when we took the opportunity to stop as probably everybody did but we did a stop. I think there are maybe races like this year in Malaysia that I feel more proud of the driving itself."
