Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Alonso takes dig at Vettel, Ferrari

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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.

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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.