Fernando Alonso has told Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari to enjoy its current ability to beat McLaren in a thinly-veiled dig at his old team.
Vettel took over Alonso’s seat at Ferrari at the end of last year and duly won the second race of the season in Malaysia as the Scuderia made a significant step forward this year. Alonso says he will not grow impatient at McLaren despite failing to reach Q2 in China, claiming Ferrari's approach will not help it beat Mercedes to the title while also all but naming Vettel as someone he sees to be enjoying his current struggles.
“I was happy and was pushing [Ferrari] even when we had an uncompetitive car to fight for the championship until the last race, so that was probably thanks to my passion, my motivation and my way to motivate a team, even in difficult moments,” Alonso said. “For many years I showed that and I’m now in a new project trying to build up something important.
“To beat Mercedes you need to do something different, you need to take some risks, thats what I decided last year to do. As I said [on Thursday], I was second in the world championship three times in the five years I was with Ferrari. I could continue for two more years there and maybe finish second again for two more years but that was not enough.
“I preferred to risk it. Now I’m out in Q1, so it’s time for many to enjoy this moment. But I don’t think they’re fighting against me because some of the ones who are enjoying it are third, one second behind. So they are beating me but not beating Mercedes, that at the end of the day is my goal. So it’s time to enjoy for the others, hopefully soon it will be time to enjoy for me.”
Vettel qualified third on the grid behind the two Mercedes drivers ahead of tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix, 0.9s slower than Lewis Hamilton’s pole time.
Click here to look under the skin of the front-running 2015 cars
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
