Alonso: Ferrari pace unrepresentative

Date published : 02 Apr 2010 - 10:21:20

Fernando Alonso is not concerned by Ferrari's underwhelming showing in Friday practice at Sepang, insisting the lap times are next to meaningless given the different fuel loads being used.Alonso finished the opening day down in seventh place, 1.4s off the benchmark time set by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, while his team-mate Felipe Massa was a further second back in 15th spot.However both Ferrari drivers focused exclusively on race simulation work, and Alonso pointed out that they kept equally far beneath the radar at the same stage in Melbourne and yet went on to qualify third and fifth.Today is just practice, he told reporters.I remember we were 15th in Australia on Friday and then we were quite quick in qualifying, so Friday is just Friday and we'll see what happens tomorrow.It was a very normal Friday for us, with no idea of where we are.The Spaniard added that he was happy with the balance of his F10 after dialling out some initial understeer, and was encouraged to find the car working well on a circuit that is quite different from the first two of the season.The car is very easy to drive and quite enjoyable to drive here in Sepang with high fuel and low fuel it remains more or less the same balance, so this is good news for us in terms of race preparation, he said.After Bahrain and Australia this is the third very different track in a row, so hopefully tomorrow we can confirm that the car is quick in all conditions and all type of circuits.Alonso, who has won twice before at Sepang in 2005 and 2007, reckons the tropical Malaysian weather might prove the biggest challenge this weekend.Obviously we don't know what our rivals are doing and what they are trying so we don't know how competitive we are, he said.Also it remains very open about the weather conditions it could rain at any moment in either qualifying or the race.So we need to concentrate and make no mistakes.Massa admitted he still had to find some time in his car, but was equally sanguine about his lowly Friday placing."As usual, it's difficult to draw any hurried conclusions after these three hours of free practice," he said."We ran a different programme to the other main teams, therefore we can't tell where we are compared with them."The car is handling reasonably well."We just need to work a bit more to improve our outright performance, but we don't have problems in any particular area."Once again, this time on a track with a variety of very quick corners, I've got a good feeling from the F10."