Fernando Alonso said he was just as “impressed” as everyone else when it came to watching Ferrari in pre-season testing.
Ferrari proved once again to be the quickest in Barcelona, but will be hoping 2019 is finally year they stop the trend of Mercedes then going to become World Champions.
Sebastian Vettel set the best time with a 1:16.221 on the final day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, but Alonso was more drawn to the 997 laps they racked up over the course of the eight days.
“I think everyone was impressed in the first week they’ve been very strong not only with the performance but also with the number of laps they put every day,” Alonso said via Crash.Net.
“But I remember last year it was some kind of a similar thing as well.
“They’ve been very strong all winter and they’ve been strong in the first couple of races but you know the championship is long and hopefully as long as we see a close championship like last year, I think we will be all happy.”
Alonso is also predicting a “very tight” midfield battle and is hoping the midfield as a whole can close in on the top three.
“I think it’s quite similar to last year,” he added.
“Obviously there were cars running 4 or 5 seconds slower or quicker than the morning and it’s difficult to judge on a winter test but I think it’s going to be tight, very tight, this year.
“It was last year, the midfield pack was compressed, from 5th to 10th. It seems that this year it can be the same and may be the midfield is a little bit closer to the big three, or hopefully it will be like that and we will see in Australia.”
Fernando Alonso, now a McLaren ambassador with on-track testing duties, was keeping a close eye on proceedings in Barcelona as he weighs up a potential return to Formula 1 in 2020.
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