Despite his car's obvious lack of pace throughout the Spanish weekend, Alonso admitted that his “stubborn” nature won't let him give up on the 2011 F1 title just yet. After 5 races this year, he is 67 points behind championship leader Vettel, but more importantly his Ferrari 150 Italia doesn't seem to be catching up with rival Red Bull RB7.
“For better or worse I was born stubborn and I think there is still time left, as long as you have a good car and you can beat them [Red Bull] on pure pace,” Alonso told reporters in Spain, following his 5th place finish in the race last weekend. “Right now we don't have it and they are further in the points count, but there's a long way to go.”
Heading to Monaco this weekend, the Spanish driver finds comfort in remembering the situation he was in last year, when Red Bull seemed unbeatable following the Spanish Grand Prix, but Ferrari managed to find the necessary pace to challenge them on the unique track in Monte Carlo.
“I have more or less the same feeling as last year. We finished Barcelona with some gap to Red Bull, 1.2 seconds in qualifying, and in the race they were very easy for the win. We arrived in Monaco and they were very competitive. This year in Barcelona again they dominate the weekend so there is still the hope that we can repeat what happened last year and we are in Monaco competitive as well.”
While admitting that Ferrari seems to lack the necessary level of downforce to become a race winning contender in Monaco, Alonso once more criticized Pirelli for providing the teams with a worse hard compound in Spain as compared to the one used so far in 2011.
“The hard ones? That's a great question for Pirelli, why they brought a harder tyre which lasts less than the other [hard], that degrades more than the other and is two seconds slower,” he added.
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