It’s Monza, it’s the Italian Grand Prix and, as night follows days, both Scuderia Ferrari drivers were called to the official FIA press conference this afternoon. In the case of the Fernando Alonso the first question concerned his physical condition, following that scary accident five days ago in Spa. “After the race there was some whiplash and a couple of hours later, I still had some pain in my back, but I woke up on Monday morning feeling fine, one hundred percent. That was good news, because often the day after the crash, you don’t know what to expect.”
As for his chances this weekend, as usual the Spaniard was circumspect about what was possible. “It won’t be easy, as we have not been so quick in the last few races, being eight tenths off pole in both Hungary and Spa. That was only five days ago, so we won’t recover eight tenths by magic! We need to maximise our performance, getting everything out of the car and hopefully that will give us the chance to get on the podium. Monza is special for any Ferrari driver, because you want to give something back for all the support you get from the tifosi from Thursday through to Sunday. The best would be to get a win, but from the championship view, it does not change too much, because if you are not fighting for the title, winning in Monza is still special, because of the podium celebration, with all the people on the main straight beneath you. We will try and have a good race and see how many points we can get. Monza is also unique because of the speeds you reach and we drivers love the speed – I remember with the V10 engines we reached 370 to 375 km/h – which makes it very special . But when I won here with Ferrari it was a whole new level and with the support you get, it is the best race on the calendar in terms of emotions. Of course, 2010 was my best memory, when I won on my first time here with Ferrari.”
Alonso affirmed he was not concerned that his car had been badly damaged in the Spa crash. “I am not worried and we have fitted parts we had used three or four races ago and for Monza, the aero package is any case unique as it is different to any other track. So it was always planned to change the car almost completely for this race.” As for the outcome of the championship, at this point, the Ferrari man felt that almost everything could change. “I don’t know if I can win the title without winning any more races,” he revealed. “At the moment, McLaren is very strong and if they were to win three or four consecutive races, then your gap disappears. So we need to focus all the time on who is second in the championship: today it’s Vettel, so this weekend we try to finish in front of Vettel, as we tried to do with Webber in past races. We just need to make progress over the remaining three months, making good steps forward and I am sure and confident they will arrive sooner or later.”