Alonso's Imola weekend

Fernando Alonso, driver for the Renault F1 Team, got into the points yet again last Sunday. Here he tells us all about his weekend.

There was a nasty surprise for the team on Friday:
"Friday was a rather difficult day," reveals Fernando. "In fact, the car wasn't handling how we thought it would. Our lap-times were not competitive. We did not have sufficient straight-line speed, and we were lacking grip out of the chicanes. The tyres were okay, but the Bridgestone teams seemed to be performing well too. BAR and Jordan's lap times were a source of concern for us."

Saturday - things fell into place:
"We worked hard on Friday evening, concentrating on the mechanical and aerodynamic set-up," says the Spaniard. "This bore fruit straight away: on Saturday, the handling of my car was completely changed. I refound the level of competitiveness we had enjoyed in the first few races, and I managed to improve my lap-times and fine-tune the settings for qualifying and the race. In the end, eighth place on the grid was a good performance. My flying lap was competitive and we could not have done much better."

Sunday - sixth place:
"The race did not hold any nasty surprises for me," says Fernando. "I had to give 100% from start to finish because I was competing with the best. Raikkonen first, then Coulthard and Montoya -- I had no time to catch my breath! I had a good time at Imola; there is no doubt about that. I love competing. Also, the team reacted really well by changing my strategy. I started on a three-stopper, but we were afraid we would find ourselves caught up in traffic, so we changed our plans. I ended up stopping twice, which was the right thing to do in the situation we found ourselves in!"

-renault-

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