Improving Ferrari encourages Alonso

Fernando Alonso was encouraged by Ferrari's progress on a high downforce track following practice for the Singapore Grand Prix.

Having focused on Ferrari's lack of performance at previous grands prix, Alonso described Friday practice as a "positive" day for the team having trialled some new parts. With Singapore requiring a maximum downforce set-up, Alonso admitted Ferrari wasn't as competitive as it had been at Monza but thinks there is more to come from certain upgrades.

"We tried various new components on the car: some seem to be positive, others less so, but maybe in the case of the latter, we need to spend a bit more time for them to be developed as well as possible," Alonso said. "Overall, I would say today was positive, even if the first impression is that we are not as competitive as we were in Monza, two weeks ago. We still lack a bit of performance on tracks like this one, where you need maximum aerodynamic downforce."

Despite having clear feelings about his own car, Alonso said the levels of tyre degradation made it tough to compare pace with his rivals.

"From what we saw today, there's a significant difference between the two types of tyre, but we will have to wait until tomorrow to get a clear picture of the situation on this front. Maybe today's difference has been somewhat exaggerated by the evolution of the track surface. Testing the tyres over a long distance is very complicated on a track like this, because of the traffic, therefore it's difficult to make a direct comparison to our main competitors. I am reasonably sure that, on Sunday, we will see rather significant degradation and it will be important to manage that as well as possible."