By ADAM COOPER on 7/10/2011
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Fernando Alonso’s brilliant win at Silverstone on Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of Ferrari’s first win at the same venue, and was also the first of the season for the team.
Alonso took advantage of a pit stop glitch by Sebastian Vettel but ultimately won by a handy margin after the German got caught behind Lewis Hamilton.
“It is a huge boost for us,” said Alonso. “Good confidence being quick here in Silverstone as no doubt it was a race on the calendar that had one red cross. We knew that it was not an easy Grand Prix for us in terms of the characteristics of the corners, the layout never being our strongest point, the high speed corners in the last two or three years so we knew that Silverstone like Barcelona, was difficult for us.
“So winning here is good motivation for everyone and good confidence I am sure approaching the next races as they will be circuits that are a little bit better for us.
“We will try to enjoy the moment, the win, and work hard. We will have the same approach that we had in Valencia, that we had in Canada, and here as well every weekend. It is a weekend to try for the victory, try to win the race. There are not championship thoughts at the moment with anyone in the team as we know that the gap is massive at the moment with Sebastian.
“We just need to enjoy every weekend. Try to win every weekend and be aggressive at the start, the pit-stops, there is no time to think about any other thing.”
Alonso couldn’t say whether he could have won without Vettel’s pit stop glitch.
“Who knows? You never know. I think it is difficult to have any prediction of what could have happened without the problems of Sebastian. For sure more difficult and you need to overtake on the track and when you are talking about two or three-tenths different pace in favor of them or us it is not easy to overtake as we saw with the McLaren and for Sebastian it was the same when he tried to overtake Lewis. It is not easy to overtake, so the pit stop problems for them was a help. But it’s the same every race. Maybe in Canada it was a different thing also for Jenson. He won the race and we retired. The races are the way it comes.”
He also played down the influence of the blown diffuser rules
“I don’t think it’s a big factor. We saw one McLaren fighting for the podium until the last moment. We saw Red Bull, Ferrari for the other positions on the podium and, as we saw 15 days ago in Valencia, I was second. I didn’t see any Force India or any Sauber or anything fighting for victory because the rules changed. It was more or less the same.
“I’m very proud of the recovery that we did. I think three or four races ago we were 1.5 seconds behind and now we were leading the race and pulling away so definitely a good recovery from the team and a very special day. Every Grand Prix is special but winning in historic places on this fantastic circuit, Silverstone, with the tradition in England about Formula One, the culture about motorsport, it is even more special.
