Alonso glad to be back home after encouraging start to the season
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso is glad to be back home in Europe after a disappointing Malaysian GP which saw him concede the championship lead to teammate Felipe Massa. The Spaniard won the first race in Bahrain, and then barely missed the podium in Australia with a fourth place, while in Malaysia a blown engine with two laps to go ended any chances to score two valuable points.
Alonso wrote in his blog over at Ferrari.com: "Finally I'm back at home! I left on 8 March for Bahrain and was on the road until last night, for what was probably the longest journey of the season. I'm glad being back in Europe, especially because the result of this season's start if definitely positive. Despite the negative outcome of the race in Sepang it's a dream to be on the second place in the standings just two points behind the leader, who is also my teammate and that Ferrari is leading the Constructors' standings.
"We had a very difficult weekend in Malaysia. It's a pity, because we had very high expectations and as far as our performance level was concerned we had the confirmation that our expectations are justified. We made a bad evaluation mistake in the qualifying and we paid for it in the race, where we also had reliability problems. Something like this can happen to anyone and we have to learn our lesson so we don't repeat certain mistakes.
"I'm not worried about the reliability. I think that what provoked the engine failure was a one-off and the team told me that there is no connection to the problems Sauber had and none to the anomalies we had before we changed the engines on Sunday in Bahrain. As far as the performance is concerned, we were also competitive in Malaysia. Sepang was a track with different characteristics compared to the previous two and the F10 showed that it could adapt itself very well. We still have to improve benefiting from the tyres on the first timed lap, but the pace in the race is very good.
"We now have a week of preparations for the Chinese GP ahead of us. This is a good occasion for us drivers to charge the batteries, while the team will work on some new elements, which might be brought to China, making the car faster. I think that the F10 adapts itself very well to the Shanghai circuit's characteristics and we can be optimistic. During the next races we have to try to get on the podium: being constantly amongst the top three means to be in a good position for the fight for the title. "
