Alonso expecting Schumacher challenge
Fernando Alonso says his chances of defending his world title depend on how his tyres perform.
The tyre war between Michelin and Bridgestone ceases this year when the French company ends its association with Formula One after six seasons.
Michelin are expected to pull out all the stops to leave on a high, but the evidence of the first race of the season is that Bridgestone will be more competitive than they were in 2005, which yielded them only one win.
Renault, Honda and McLaren are all Michelin-shod teams, while their Japanese rivals supply Toyota, Williams and Ferrari.
And it is the Italian outfit, led by seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, that Renault driver Alonso fears could prove his biggest challenger at tracks where Bridgestone hold the upper hand.
Ferrari showed they had recovered some of the ground lost to Renault in a lean 2005 when Schumacher led for two thirds of the race in the season opener in Bahrain last weekend.
“Ferrari have improved a lot compared to last year and they were ready to fight for the victory,” Alonso said ahead of this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix. “We had a difficult race with them.
“Ferrari’s success will depend on their tyres. We saw that in Bahrain the Bridgestones worked very well – Ferrari was fighting for the victory and the Williams did the fastest lap of the race.
“When the Bridgestone works, Ferrari will be the main challenge, probably, and when the Michelin works probably McLaren and Honda will be our rivals.
“But Malaysia has been a good track for the Renault and this year should be the same. It’s also quite good for Michelin tyres in the past so hopefully we can beat Ferrari here as has happened last year.”
Schumacher was back on song in Bahrain, taking a record-equalling pole position and only missing out on the win by a second, and part of his pace was owed to improved Bridgestone rubber.
The German has faith his tyres, which can once again be changed mid-race, will allow him to be at least challenging for his fourth win around the Sepang circuit.
He said: “I hope that we can have a similar performance to the one in Bahrain. I don’t think the heat will be a problem for us.
“So I would guess that should be competitive here as well. We have a good car, especially compared to last year.
“The only thing which we can say has been improved compared to last year is that several times towards the end of the race tyre wear was high.
“On top of that, we were also one or two seconds slower in qualifying. These problems are not the case now, but you cannot say that it is just down to the rule about changing tyres that has given us an advantage.
“It was just a pure performance thing that didn’t work last year.”
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