Alonso in 'love' with Yas Marina Circuit

Fernando Alonso insists he loves the Yas Marina Circuit despite being denied the championship at the Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year.

The Ferrari driver who was leading the championship going into the Abu Dhabi race left fuming after being held up in the traffic at the back by Renault’s Vitaly Petrov which resulted in Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull winning the race and being crowned the youngest Formula One champion.

“I don’t think we lost the four points we needed last year in Abu Dhabi. We lost it in Valencia or Silverstone where we scored zero points, not because of race last year here,” said Alonso.

On the contrary he was looking forward to racing in the Yas Marina Circuit.

“I love the circuit. It’s a fantastic circuit and a fantastic race in general,” said Alonso who was asked several times whether he had any ill feelings of last year’s race.

“To be honest when I woke up this morning and went to the swimming pool at the hotel, I looked at the circuit, boats and paddock, I said to myself what a wonderful place to be racing this weeknd,” he said because of the weather convenients flights to go to Europe.

“The circuit is very challenging and the country in general and all fans
are passionate about Formula One. We have the park here (Ferrari World) which we made for Ferrari fans. In general looking forward to wonderful weekend despite of last year mathematically losing the championship,” he said.

Alonso also insisted the 2011 has not been a disaster for Ferrari, despite winning just one race so far.

“For sure when you race for Ferrari there are a lot of expectations. People expect us to win many races and to fight for the championship and we weren’t able to do that. We understand that the season was not the best for our fans and for ourselves,” he said during a Shell event at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.

In fact he is pleased with his performance this season.

“This is my best season in Formula One so far. It’s an improvement from last year where we had a jump start in China and accident in Monaco. We improved starts a lot, pit stops, qualifying and race in general. Everything in general has been better this year. Happy to have nine podiums this year and fighting for second place now,” he added.

But the Spaniard conceded the Maranello squad must raise the bar for 2012 in order to be able to fight for the championship again.

“We need to improve. We need to raise our level for next year and we need to fight at the top of the podium from race one. That’s the ambition for next year and that’s the target. We know that the competition is strong.

“Red Bull will be very strong as well next year. McLaren will be very strong as well. Mercedes I guess they will improve a lot. We need to extract the best from ourselves this winter and arrive in March with the best Ferrari possible,” Alonso added.

Alonso says he is still motivated to try and finish second in this year’s championship, but he admits it is not a high priority.

“We are competitive people. We like to win and when we cannot be first it’s not the same,” he said.

“It’s much more important to learn things for next year, to gain half a tenth for next year than to finish second in the championship.

“But at the same time I see all the mechanics, the engineers really pushing to get to second place because we know the tough year we had, so for them I will try to do my best for sure.”

Alonso and his Scuderia Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa were involved in the preparation of a fruit drink to illustrate the superior formula of Shell Helix Ultra engine oil.

With only eight engines allowed to be used by each driver for the entire Grand Prix season, which stretches across 19 gruelling races this year – including the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday - the Shell Helix Ultra engine lubrication is critical in providing the right level of protection both on the track and while the engines are in storage between races.

Shell’s longstanding technical partnership with Ferrari - which stretches over 60 years - has been crucial in accelerating the development of its premium range of fuels and lubricants for everyday motorists.

Richard Jory, General Manager of Shell Markets Middle East Limited, said: “Shell has always been a key partner of Ferrari, having developed premium fuel, lubricants and fluids that help ensure optimum car performance during the Grands Prix. We have nurtured over 60 years of shared passion for performance with Scuderia Ferrari, a partnership that has helped to accelerate the pace of development for Shell’s range of premium lubricants for the road. Moreover, the technology developed in Formula One is transferred to Shell’s consumer product line such as Shell Helix Ultra, whose Active Cleansing Technology results in a smoother, more responsive drive for everyday motorists.”

Shell has a database of approximately 13,000 lubricant samples taken at Formula One races that are used on a daily basis to aid product development and transfer knowledge from the racetrack to the road. Moreover, Shell has made tests with more than one thousand motorists globally in order to show the obvious difference after replacing engine oil with Shell Helix Ultra.

Asked about the role played by the expert Shell trackside laboratory team, Massa said: “It is very important because when you go inside the car and you know what you have, you can trust everybody which is working everyday to improve performance, to make your engine strong from the beginning to end of the race.”

On being part of research that Shell makes with Ferrari for Formula One which gets transferred to everyday cars that people use, Alonso said: “As Felipe said it is important to work with people we trust because we need not only best product and most performing product. We use Shell products not only 18 weekends a year in Formula One but every day in our lives.”

He also shared the result of testing two months ago in Maranello where they put a special fuel used in Formula One and then used normal fuel in the Formula One car.

“It was a very interesting result. We lost like two-tenths of a second over one lap,” he said.
 

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