"I'm confident about the work we're doing." His retirement in the Malaysian GP does not worry Fernando Alonso – he's ready to play a leading role with Ferrari in the Chinese GP on Sunday. "I was at the track for a few hours and I spoke at length with my engineers. We reviewed the situation and analyzed in detail both the data from Malaysia and the F10's development program. We have made a few changes to the aerodynamics for this race which should be a step forward in terms of performance," said Alonso on his blog on Ferrari's official website. "I expect our main rivals will also have made some improvements, so right now it's impossible to say where we stand compared with the others: we will only find that out on Saturday afternoon in qualifying. We have shown that we are competitive on all the types of circuits we've raced on so far, both in the races and in the February testing, and there's no reason why that shouldn't be the case in China as well. The Shanghai circuit is very interesting. There are all kinds of corners and a long straight that ends in a very tight right-hand corner: under heavy braking like that there have always been plenty of passing maneuvers."
Tires will be key — "As always," Alonso went on, "qualifying will be important and we'll need to carefully evaluate the performance of the tires, the same ones we had in Australia and Malaysia, in cooler temperatures. It's important that we get plenty of points to finish this first part of the season outside Europe in the best possible way. After the Shanghai race there is a longer gap than usual, and we'll be able to recharge our batteries before the European part of the season. We'll all take advantage of it, that's for sure." As always, the weather will play an important role in China: "It's cold in Shanghai! I arrived here on Monday and it certainly doesn't feel like spring. It can't be more than ten degrees, and it's been raining non-stop since mid-morning. The weather conditions should be better for race weekend but we'll need to be ready for anything."