Fernando Alonso has said that his unspectacular testing performances are not relevant to the car’s overall speed. The two-time world champion completed 133 laps at the Circuito de Jerez yesterday, but finished with the slowest time of all the drivers. He told journalists after the test that nothing could be read into that, however.
”We’re learning lots here. Each day we feel better, but you can’t make conclusions about speed from the test times,” the Spaniard said.
”The cars we’re running here will have almost nothing in common with the ones that appear in Melbourne,” he added.
The Asturian driver also remarked that yesterday was the first full day the team had had to test the car, because of the wet weather in Portimao and Nelson Piquet Jr’s problems with the brakes on Tuesday and Wednesday.
”This is the first day in dry conditions. In Portimao we lost the test, and here the two days before, Nelsinho had some problems with the brakes, so we didn’t make enough laps to really see the car.”
It will also be of comfort to Alonso that fuel loads and settings are also variables when testing, meaning that little can be read into test times. Nevertheless, Alonso appeared to realise the necessity of further work on the R29.
”We drove with no problems but we need to keep improving the car, with the setup especially, to be more comfortable.”
