{"id":14654,"date":"2011-12-20T05:58:15","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T10:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=14654"},"modified":"2011-12-20T05:58:15","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T10:58:15","slug":"alonso-expects-ferrari-to-close-gap-on-red-bull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/alonso-expects-ferrari-to-close-gap-on-red-bull\/","title":{"rendered":"Alonso expects Ferrari to close gap on Red Bull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso has admitted an &#8220;overdose of optimism&#8221; as Ferrari looks to bounce back and win the world championship in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The normally-cautious Spaniard said he expects the &#8220;dramatic difference&#8221; in pace to Red Bull this year to have been curbed in time for next season, with Ferrari having rendered its conservative approach to history with an all-new project.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is an optimism, in fact an overdose as with all the winters with Ferrari, just as it is in the preseason for Real Madrid,&#8221; said Alonso.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are the best team in formula one and we have an obligation to be world champion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are optimistic but we will have strong rivals and the championship will be decided by one or two tenths,&#8221; he predicted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Red Bull was very, very good and it will be improved further, but they don&#8217;t have as much room to improve as we do,&#8221; Alonso is quoted by Europa Press.<\/p>\n<p>For 2012, the FIA has clamped down on flexible front wings and also blown exhaust diffusers &#8212; two innovations pioneered and perfected by current champions Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p>Alonso thinks the cream will still rise to the top.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what rules they (the FIA) think of because the engineers are smarter,&#8221; he insisted.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, a specialist magazine surveyed every F1 team principal and Sebastian Vettel was voted the best driver of 2011, with Alonso also trailing behind runner-up Jenson Button.<\/p>\n<p>He smiled: &#8220;The first position is for the champion of course, because he has been the best.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of the others, several of us have done good seasons and it&#8217;s difficult to put a value on it due to the differences in the cars.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;F1 goes in cycles,&#8221; Alonso is quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport.\u00a0 &#8220;Sebastian won the last two, I have won two, but we will see in ten years who has the most.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has been very lucky to have a competitive car so quickly, but I wouldn&#8217;t want to swap with anyone.\u00a0 I&#8217;m with the team I want to be in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso has admitted an &#8220;overdose of optimism&#8221; as Ferrari looks to bounce back and win the world championship in 2012. The normally-cautious Spaniard said he expects the &#8220;dramatic difference&#8221; in pace to Red Bull this year to have been curbed in time for next season, with Ferrari having rendered its conservative approach to history &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[5262,149,93,5340,129],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14655,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14654\/revisions\/14655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}