F1: `Ferrari remains the team to beat`

[Rory Phoulorie]

Monday 9th April 2007

Fernando Alonso is well aware that Ferrari won't take the Malaysian GP defeat lying down and expects a fightback in Sunday's Bahrain race.

Despite having, arguably, the fastest car on the grid at the Malaysian Grand Prix, Ferrari lost out to the McLarens on the opening lap of the race and from there on struggled to cope.

Alonso, though, doesn't believe Sunday's win means McLaren are now the team to beat as he concedes Ferrari do, at least for now, have the fastest car on the grid.

Asked how he predicts the Bahrain GP will pan out, the reigning F1 Champion said: "It is difficult to know.

"I think there will not be big changes in the cars between here and there because there are only four days between the races, so the cars will not be developed, so we should again be competitive.

"But the Ferrari was a little bit quicker than everybody in the test so I still believe it will be very, very hard to beat them again so I think we will have again a difficult weekend."

However, his team boss Ron Dennis has vowed to do all he can to ensure that Alonso and Hamilton have the pace needed to challenge the Ferraris for the victories and, ultimately, the World titles.

"We will try to come to Bahrain with a lap time improvement and we will certainly be in Spain with a significant lap time improvement, and we will do everything we can to win both world championships," he told Autosport.

"But there is an awful long way to go yet and this is the second race. We are under no illusions."

http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_2047381,00.html