Alonso downplays Ferrari's Valencia pace

Fernando Alonso has rubbished opinion that Ferrari is the team to beat after the Scuderia bagged the triple at Valencia this week.

The Formula One teams were in action for the first time this year, spending three days putting in the laps at Valencia. Ferrari quickly emerged as the dominant force as Felipe Massa topped the timesheets on the opening two days.

Handing over to Alonso for Wednesday's running, Massa's best time for the test was soon beaten as his Spanish team-mate crossed the line with a 111.470.

Ferrari's superior times have led to some suggestions that the Scuderia are the team to beat, a claim that Alonso firmly denies.

"No, I don't think so. It's just the first day and as I said now at least for me the priority was getting completely comfortable. There are many things to discover for me, many things to learn," he told Autosport in the wake of his Ferrari debut.

"I think maybe if we topped the times the three days it's related to fuel load or whatever, or maybe because it's true we are competitive. But before being competitive we need to make sure we do a lot of laps and that the car is strong and can finish all the grands prix.

"We are at that period of winter testing. We need to make the car very, very strong and until Barcelona or the last test at Jerez I think we will not look for the performance."

The double World Champion, though, did admit that he was left with a positive impression of Ferrari's F10 - but then again he also had a good feeling about last year's Renault and that didn't exactly work out too well.

"The first impression is always good. It was very good last year, and I was not in Q3 very often. For that I'm very, very cautious," he said.

"It was a good first day, but also because I found the car very easy to drive because Felipe was running for two days and I've been taking this information from him which was a help. If you run day one and day two maybe it was more difficult for me."

Alonso downplays Ferrari's Valencia pace - Planet-F1 News from planet-f1.com

lol, well see during the first qualifiers.. we'll know then