Last year’s title protagonists, Fernando Alonso and
Sebastian Vettel, have predicted a close and open fight for the first few races
of the season.
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| (c) Ferrari |
Both agreed that testing proved to be inconclusive and said
teams are in the dark about a potential running order. What it did show was
that there are potentially five teams vying for the win in Australia, with
the midfield pack looking close but some way off the leading teams.
Alonso even thinks up to 10 drivers have a chance of victory
in Australia,
almost like a lottery. 2012 saw seven different winners in the same number of
races, and we could well see something similar in 2013, with teams struggling
to work out Pirelli’s new tyres.
Ferrari driver Alonso said “nobody knows who can win this
race, we will have to wait and see, and these are questions that winter testing
didn’t answer.”
Testing a mix of poor weather conditions, cold temperatures
and difficulty with the degradation of the Pirelli rubber which caused this
walk into the unknown.
He continued “this year, there is some consistency through
the grid and I expect the five top teams to have little advantage, but of those
five teams, it is very difficult to say after winter testing which of them will
have the extra two or three tenths which could make them win.”
“I think Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Lotus and Red Bull all
showed potential at different times during testing, so it’s hard to choose.
It’s very close and difficult to choose one favourite.”
Some suggested that Red Bull still looked fastest in
testing, by a couple of tenths. Vettel gave little away about the RB9’s pace
during the Thursday Driver Press Conference.
“We don’t really think about what has happened last year; we
are here with zero points on our side, the same as everyone else. The cars
haven’t really changes and we saw last year that it was very close so I don’t
expect it to be very different to last year.
“If anything, it will be a little bit tighter so it will be
crucial to make the most of every single race.”
What Vettel said is very true, he won the title last year
through consistency and Alonso challenged closely due to this too. The latter
looks to have better machinery at his disposal this year though.
Alonso said “It’s not difficult to start better than 2012,
but it would be difficult to start worse. It is going to be a very interesting championship;
we need to start on the right foot.”
This is something Lewis Hamilton has done with his new team
Mercedes. The Brit said it usually takes a while to get comfortable within a
new team, and despite needing more time to get settled in it has been a good
start
He said “normally when you go to a new team it takes a while
to get settled in, but I’m working as hard as I can to get settled in, it just
takes time and as time goes on I will get more comfortable.
Hamilton
has certainly got comfortable in his new car, the W04. He said “I’m comfortable
in the car. We’ve definitely made some good steps forward, but we have a lot of
work still to do.”
The “big three” were talking in the Thursday Driver Press
Conference, alongside Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen. To see
it in full go here: http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/8563695/driver-press-conference
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