Alonso: I am improving at every race!

By role
May 19 2003

Spanish F1 driver was sad and happy yesterday after he had to abandon the race because of an engine breakage. Alonso fought a hard race starting from the pits and could have finished on the top 5 if not for the mechanical failure.

Despite the disappointment of not finishing, Alonso was optimistic because of the pace found during the race:

“At the start of the race only Webber passed me, but it was obvious he was going lighter, and therefore I was not worried. When I was fighting with Coulthard I knew what my possibilities where against him based on the strategy, so I was quite calm there. The hardest moments where the first four or five laps of the race and after the pit stop, I had to drive the car as I could, but after that the car was improving”.

Alonso was going for an strategy of only one stop: “Since we were going to start from the pits, and since there was little chance of rain, what we did was to fill up of fuel and to bet in a one pit-stop race, it was not easy to drive with so much fuel, however I could keep with the pace. I think this was the right strategy for me.”

Alonso had a bit of bad luck at the start as he had to wait for Da Matta to go through the pit lane before the exit. As the Brazilian had experienced some problems with the launch control system he had to do a manual exit what made him quite slow.

“After the first lap I was 15 seconds away from the leader, but the safety car allowed me to get at the tail of the pack and to wash down a bit of the time lost by exiting from the pits and waiting for Da Matta to go through us. Anyhow, even if the race did not finish as well as it could, since I had hoped to finish 4th or 5th , I am happy with my race and quite satisfied for the effort.”

Alonso has loads of confidence for future races:

“I know I say it after each race, but I am improving every Grand Prix and I am not joking. The car full of fuel was quite hard to drive and however I was being competitive”.