Q & A with Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso: It was very difficult, and we knew that. The whole weekend has been quite bad for us apart from yesterday being in Q3, which was the only nice surprise of the weekend. The rest has not been good enough, not our level. In the race we were struggling and behind all the teams we are fighting with, Williams, Red Bull, and Toyota. So we cannot be happy with the result.

Q. Can you run us through what happened with Lewis Hamilton? The closing speed seemed quite dramatic for cars coming out of a corner?

FA: Yes. On lap one, he touched me in Turn Four in the rear diffuser. And then on lap two he jumped over me on the straight. I don't know what happened. I was flat out...the McLaren is quite quick on the straights.

Q. So you think he just made a mistake?

FA: No, I think we were running too close and for sure maybe he didn't realise how close we were. He jumped into my rear wing. I am sure on the first couple of laps, if you are eighth or ninth, you try to recover places too quickly.

Q. So there was damage to your diffuser from the first lap?

FA: I don't know. The car was quite bad yesterday and was quite bad today, so maybe it was the same.

Q. Some experts in the paddock are saying that you may have momentarily just lifted?

FA: Well, Pat Symonds told me now that rumour, and he has printed now the data to show everybody. It is totally rubbish, but what can I do?

Q. What happened in the incident with Timo Glock?

FA: I was just frustrated with my own car, not with him. I missed an opportunity to overtake him and I had wheelspin at the exit, and that was it. I lost unfortunately.

Q. Looking ahead to the Spanish Grand Prix, your home race, what can you expect?

FA: Well, now unfortunately we are in a pessimistic moment because the first three races were not as good as we expected. We were not aiming for a podium or anything like that, but being in the points was not too difficult we thought.

But, especially this weekend we have been around 12th or 13th position in all the free practice and qualifying, so we need to make a bigger step. There is a new package for the Barcelona Grand Prix, and we have confidence that we will improve the car. So it is just a matter of how much the others will improve as well, so we are a little bit concerned about our performance at the moment.

Q. Are you getting frustrated?

FA: No, not really. I knew when I jumped in the car at 2 o'clock today; I knew that the race was getting very, very difficult because we didn't have the pace all weekend. There was going to be no magic to make us have the pace in the race. It was going to be a tough race, and it was a tough race.

Q. How difficult it is for you personally being in your position?

FA: Well, it is frustrating for sure. But in a way it is a new challenge and I need to learn from this year. I will be always in the middle of the year fighting, having overtaking manoeuvres, and making starts that are very difficult around 10th and 11th. So I need to learn, every race will be a new challenge and a new experience for me, so at the end of the year I will be a better driver because of it.