Alonso: Ferrari will be back in 2012

Thursday 24th November 2011

Alonso: Ferrari will be back in 2012

Alonso: Ferrari will be back in 2012

Fernando Alonso is adamant Ferrari will be back in the hunt for the titles in 2011 after claiming just one race win this year.

This year's Championship has been a dismal one for the Italian stable, who fell well off the pace of the Red Bull racers.

Added to that, Ferrari have also been beaten by McLaren, securing one victory to the Woking outfit's six.

As a result, Ferrari will finish this season a distant third in the Constructors' Championship, although Alonso still holds a slim chance of at least achieving second place in the Drivers'.

The Spaniard, though, doesn't want second, he wants a World title and reckons Ferrari can fight for it next year.

"I am confident to be fighting for the World Championship again next year and what makes me confident is that I am with Ferrari," Alonso told Autosport.

"I am quite happy from a personal point of view (with) how 2011 went. How the team approached this season and how we improved in areas where last year we were weak - so overall it is much stronger this year than last.

"Now I feel with a competitive car we can be very, very strong and we can be fighting for the World Championship.

"Last year even with a competitive car we still had weak areas where we were maybe not good enough, like the start, like the strategies, some driver errors, some conservative approaches to the grand prix. All those things have been improved, and now I think we have a very strong team compared with last year.

"Now I feel that we only need the car. Last year we needed more things than just the car."

As for the tussle for second in the Drivers' Championship, Alonso trails Jenson Button by ten points and concedes it won't be easy making the deficit in the season finale in Brazil on Sunday, which he would like to finish on the top step of the podium.

"Maybe with the possibility of rain or something on Sunday maybe we can see a more unusual race with not always Red Bull, Mclaren and Ferrari in the first five or six races. Very difficult. Very unlikely.

"We were expecting some good competitiveness of the car in India, Korea and Abu Dhabi but we also hoped for some strange races like in Korea for example we expected some rain or some more factors in the race.

"But we had very standard races in the last four or five, with dry weekends all the way through and with the potential at the moment of Red Bull and McLaren we were nowhere near victories.

"So here I think it will not change too much. The victory remains very unlikely, but we will have to go for it. We are professional and we are competitive people so on Sunday for sure we will go for the win if it is possible."

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