Charles Leclerc, Kimi Raikkonen, Silverstone, 2018

Alonso explains “three Ferrari teams” remark

2018 British Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by and

Fernando Alonso has explained his comment to Spanish television yesterday that McLaren has to beat “three Ferrari teams” in Formula 1.

Ferrari’s two power unit customers are Haas and Sauber. Haas sources the maximum allowed number of components from Ferrari the rules allows, while Sauber produces more of its own parts.

The two Haas drivers and Charles Leclerc’s Sauber made it into Q3 at the expense of Alonso yesterday. Alonso believes the teams’ relationships with Ferrari has helped them improve.

“It’s not simply that Haas and Sauber are ahead of the midfield group,” he said. “They benefit, definitely, [from] some of the experience Ferrari has.”

The McLaren driver previously described Haas’s car as a ‘Ferrari replica’. He said yesterday those remarks about Haas were a “copy and paste” of overlooked comments others made about the team during winter testing.

“I say that like everyone says that,” he told media including RaceFans. “In Australia I said something about the Haas and it seems that only Alonso said something about the Haas.”

However Alonso claimed Haas and Sauber’s improved performance this year is a positive development for the sport.

“It’s good for Formula 1 and for them that with the small budgets or less resources they are still being competitive,” he said.

“We don’t see the Sauber we saw in the last couple of years. This is more the Sauber we saw with Perez and Kobayashi in 2012. Sergio was doing a couple of podiums, I don’t know if this year it will be possible to do a podium or not with the Sauber but definitely they are going in the right direction.”

McLaren and the other midfield teams cannot take it for granted they will reach Q2, Alonso added.

“Definitely it is a motivation for McLaren and for the other teams to keep working hard. We know there are no small teams anymore.

“Being out of Q1, it can happen for anyone. [Yesterday] it was a Renault out in Q1. That was unthinkable in Australia or China. I think quite good news and quite interesting for the sport.

“Every weekend is quite close and no one is safe to be out of Q1 any more. That’s good news for everybody.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2018 F1 season

Browse all 2018 F1 season articles

11 comments on “Alonso explains “three Ferrari teams” remark”

  1. Proud_Asturian
    8th July 2018, 10:58

    Stay mad!

    Beaten by the Sauber and the Haas – I would lash out too!!!

  2. Maybe it is what McLaren needs…

  3. I remember the days when Force India was receiving similar support from McLaren. Oh how the “mighty” have fallen.

    1. @patrickl

      McLaren’s last ‘mighty’ season was in 2007 with Alonso in the car. It was downhill from pretty much from the second half of 2008.

  4. Did this really need to be explained? Who would be asking “What could you have possibly meant by 3 ferrari teams?” Not the engine supplier surely -_-” zz

  5. Sush meerkat
    8th July 2018, 13:28

    Yes Alonso, McLaren also need to beat two Mercedes teams, two Renault teams and one works Honda teams.

    Hopefully Vandoorne steps up his game and he can split the Williams duo for you.

  6. Alonso, the toxic man…

  7. Alonso is the BEST

  8. Don’t get your hopes up on Vandoorne doing anything: He’s driving a setup suited for Alonso, since Stoffel had other things to do on Friday, instead of doing the qualifying and race-setup. That McLaren is as stable in the rear as a bike with broken spokes

  9. Alo’s talk/knowledge ratio is as big as his ego:) Imagine how much he have said that simply is off….
    Either he (alone not team) perform the best race or qual ever or he pick on someone – or both.

  10. “I say that like everyone says that,” he told media including RaceFans. “In Australia I said something about the Haas and it seems that only Alonso said something about the Haas.”

    Is Nando referring to himself in the third person here?

Comments are closed.