Championship leader Fernando Alonso played down Ferrari's relatively slow performance in the first two practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Friday.
Championship leader Fernando Alonso played down Ferrari's relatively slow performance in the first two practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Friday.
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets in both the morning and afternoon, while Alonso and his team mate Felipe Massa struggled in the mid-division almost a second behind the pace set by the British 2008 world champion.
"It''s pointless to look for any significance in Friday''s classification. I'm seventh but I could just as well have been second or last and it would not have changed anything," Alonso told reporters.
The Spaniard, who won the season-opening race on his Ferrari debut in Bahrain and finished fourth in Melbourne last week, shrugged off Friday's sluggish display as nothing more than a typical practice session.
"It all depends on the difference between the programmes adopted by the teams," he said.
"From our side, we are reasonably happy with what we have done and first impressions would be that there is no reason to expect a different picture to the one in Bahrain and Melbourne.
"In the space of four days (since the Australian Grand Prix), nothing much is likely to have changed."
Alonso felt the real test would come during Saturday's qualifying and the race itself a day later and he highlighted a number of factors that would determine the winner.
"It will not be easy but there is no need to be pessimistic," he said. "The temperature of the engines, the brakes, tyres and last but not least the drivers will be of the utmost importance. We will have to keep them all under control."
Massa lies second in the standings after finishing second in Bahrain and third in Melbourne. The Brazilian was further off the pace than Alonso on Friday but echoed his team mate''s sentiments ahead of qualifying.
"What is clear is that Red Bull and McLaren seem to be going very well. Let's wait and see what we can do in qualifying and especially in the race," he said.
"The car handles reasonably well, we just need to work a bit more to improve our outright performance but we don''t have problems in any particular area."
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