Sunday: Alonso is content but expects more from Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 3rd:

In the end, it went well, but we definitely can’t continue like this. My main rival won’t keep dropping out all the time, as happened in the last two races, and we can’t hope to make it to the end of the season with qualifying sessions like yesterday’s, where our performance was nearly a second off the best. On the track, we manage to get the most out of what we have, making few or no mistakes thanks to the team’s superb work: for this reason alone, we deserve to be where we are in the standings.

Today, we have increased our advantage over three of our main competitors, which is positive. It was probably the most difficult circuit for us: we will encounter similar characteristics in Korea and Abu Dhabi, but I hope that by then, we will have found a way to improve the car.

The start was definitely not one of the best of my season, but fortunately I managed to immediately regain my position on Di Resta. During my first pit stop, I found myself immediately in traffic, but I felt the tires starting to degrade too much, so we decided to stop.

With the Softs, we were more competitive, but then, after the second stop, the safety car was deployed, which favored Button and Vettel. Just before the restart, the two leaders almost collided and I lost a few meters because I was changing settings on the wheel. At that moment, we didn’t know yet if we would have to stop again, but when there was the second safety car period and some drivers pitted, we decided to stay on track, even though we weren’t sure if we would suffer from degradation in the final stages, but that wasn’t the case, and we easily made it onto the podium.

It was a very physically challenging race, definitely the most exhausting of the whole season. »

Felipe Massa – 8th:

« It was a very grueling and difficult race. There are regrets about what happened at the first corner because without the puncture, I certainly could have finished much closer to Fernando, which would have been important for both championships. As soon as I went into the pits, there wasn’t much to do: the goal was to try to make the tires last as long as possible while going as fast as possible.

Fortunately, the two safety cars brought the pack together, but it’s also true that I never would have thought of doing such a long stint as the last one on Super Soft tires. The performance of the F2012 today was evidently very different from what we saw over the past two days: it felt like I was driving a different car. Even towards the end, I tried to attack to gain a few places and it was only in the last two laps that I started thinking about bringing the car home, given that the tires were practically dead.

Regarding the overtake on Senna, I think the rules are very clear and everyone must simply respect them: I was already alongside him and he should have left me space, but instead he pushed me against the wall.

McLaren and Red Bull are very strong, but I think today’s result is not so bad for the team: Fernando managed to bring home some good points. Of course, we need to improve our performance, especially in qualifying.