I still believe we can fight for the championship - Alonso
Only one week after the Chinese Grand Prix, the F1 circus travels to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Renault F1 Team driver Fernando Alonso's target is clear: to score as many points as possible before returning to Europe, when more updates will be fitted to the car. The Spanish driver is still confident that he and his team can fight for the championship.
"That’s right. To come away with no points was a disappointing end to a really positive weekend where we showed a lot of potential. The new parts we added to the car gave us a big step forward and the team did a great job to get them to China and fitted on the car in time for qualifying. To qualify on the front row showed the progress we’ve made and it was a boost for the whole team. Unfortunately I started the race light on fuel and I made my first stop under the safety car, which pretty much ended my race as I went from the front row to the back of the pack. It was just one of those days when the decisions we took didn’t go our way."
We head to Bahrain this weekend, a circuit where you’ve won in the past. Do you enjoy racing there?"Yes, it’s a challenging circuit and I have some good memories of my wins there in 2005 and 2006 with Renault. Because of the circuit’s location, it can get quite dusty and the conditions change from lap to lap so you need to be careful, but there are still some good overtaking opportunities, especially into turn 1 and turn 4. It’s one of the most demanding circuits on the brakes with lots of big braking zones and so we will look at the wear rates on Friday to make sure we don’t have any problems in the race."
What do you think is possible this weekend?"Hopefully we can repeat the performance we showed in China so that we can reach Q3 and fight for points in the race. It’s still an early stage in the year and already the team has made incredible progress, which gives me the belief that we can still fight for the championship. We will have more updates when we get back to Europe, but at this stage in the year it’s important that we score as many points as possible at each race so we can be in the fight at the end of the season."
