12/12/2012
NEWS STORY
In his final working appearance of the year, Fernando Alonso was grilled by a number of Spanish journalists... and their children.
Ahead of this weekend's traditional end of season lunch with his team and the Christmas party with the children of all Ferrari employees, the 2012 runner-up attended a special media day at the headquarters of Santander in Madrid.
There, he was questioned by both journalists and some of their children, the questions from the youngsters predictably more imaginative than those asked by their parents.
The youngsters questions included; "who is the best out of Messi, Ronaldo or Facao?" "how many trophies do you have at home," and even "do you know how to dance?", while the parents stuck to the more traditional line of interrogation.
"Sometimes you think you've done a good job and at others you feel something is lacking or that you would like to change or improve for the following year, but this time, I think this was a perfect year and I am very happy with my season," said Alonso.
"Vettel is a worthy champion," he admitted, "he scored more points than anyone else and that is clear for all to see."
However, asked about how he sees 2013 panning out, Alonso's response was ominous. "Red Bull will again be favourites next year, ending this season with seven or eight tenths in hand over us and that will be hard for us to make up over the winter. The McLaren was also quicker than us and, at the end, even Force India and Lotus were ahead of us. Having said that, I remain confident, partly because we will be starting from a better base than this year. It would be hard to start as badly as in 2012: in Jerez at the first test, we were two seconds and a half off the pace, in Australia one and a half seconds…
"There's a lot of work to do but our objective is clear: to have two Ferraris ahead of the field, both on Saturday and Sunday. These past few years, some teams have managed that, but not us: we will try again in 2013. I don't think the fact the Maranello wind tunnel has been temporarily closed will be a handicap: we will use other wind tunnels, and indeed we have been doing just that for the past few months."
Finally, has was (once again) asked about Vettel's pass on Vergne at Interlagos. "I can only repeat what I already said in Valencia: Ferrari was right to ask the FIA for a clarification in order to remove all doubt for the fans: the Federation replied that everything was in order and so the case is closed."