Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Alonso’s premature Ferrari dismissal

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Fernando Alonso prematurely dismissed Ferrari’s chances of success during the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend when questioned over his McLaren move.

The Spaniard left Ferrari at the end of last season - before the end of his contract - in order to chase a title with McLaren-Honda. While the return of Honda has been a difficult one so far, Ferrari has started the season encouragingly.

After Sebastian Vettel qualified second on the grid and Alonso 18th in Malaysia, Alonso was asked on Saturday evening about his feelings to be qualifying at the back while the car he had vacated lined up on the front row, but was dismissive of the result.

“I want to be on pole position, not second,” Alonso said. “So I think it’s a long way to go for us. We start now quite far behind but I have so much trust and confidence in this team. We have such a talented team of engineers inside McLaren and we saw the progress in the last two weeks.

“To beat Mercedes to do something special, not to copy them or to follow them because if not then you will be behind all the time.”

In the race, Vettel then went on to outpace the Mercedes to deliver a shock first win for Ferrari since Alonso took victory in the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.

Click here for former Honda engineer Jacky Eeckelaert's Malaysian Grand Prix debrief

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.