Alonso resigned to tough weekend

Fernando Alonso says he has resigned himself to a difficult weekend on-track after concluding that his Renault does not suit the Sakhir circuit following Friday`s free practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The double world champion is hoping that overnight changes will improve his competitive chances on Sunday, after ending the second free practice session down in 12th position, two places and half second back from his teammate Nelson Piquet.

“Obviously we are not very competitive and we need to work overnight to change everything, because we are not very happy today,” he said.”We are obviously too slow so it is not easy to know where we are losing all the time.

“We believe braking stability has been quite bad all day, and traction has been probably our biggest problem today as well. So here in Bahrain, to have poor braking stability and poor traction is killing your lap time.”

Alonso indicated that the problems presented by the R28 in Bahrain could be inherent to the chassis however after trying different set-ups to cure the issues on Friday.

“We tried a couple of different things to sort it out in terms of setup, but the car seems not really to change much with the changes so I am afraid it is just the car not suiting this track.”

Alonso`s woes were compounded by a collision late on with Force India`s Adrian Sutil. The Spaniard accepted the blame for the incident after admitting he locked up and clattered into the German at Turn One, late in the second session.”I braked too close to him, I lost the downforce and locked the rear tyres,” said Alonso. “I felt I was having a spin in braking, then I controlled the car and it was too late. I was into the corner with too much speed.”

The Bahrain GP stewards deemed not to take any action over the matter.

4.4.2008   ▪ Formula One    ▪ Alonso    ▪ www.autosport.com