Fernando Alonso has joined in the recent confident chorus of positive soundbites regarding 2012 from Ferrari, with the Spaniard saying that he could see an 'urgency' in the team to make a better car than Red Bull next year.
Ferrari spent much of 2011 in Red Bull's shadow, with Alonso winning just a single race all season when he took victory at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.For 2012, the team is seeking to bounce back from their humbling 2011, and team boss Stefano Domenicali and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo have both made recent confident comments about the team's chances next season.
Now Alonso has joined them, with the double world champion saying that the team was eager to build a "dominant" car for 2012 to take the initiative from Red Bull.
"At this point of the season we all think we have the best car ahead of next year. We have to wait until February when he put in on the track, to see the results and to see how fast it can go," he rambled in a sponsor press conference on Monday.
"What's clear is that everybody in the team is very, very motivated ahead of next year. There's an urge to gain the ground lost and get the feeling that Red Bull has had for the past two years.
"Tasting wins and championships is something Ferrari is used to doing in the past decade and it's something we want to do again."
He added: "From the first mechanic to the last designer, I've seen an atmosphere of full focus and a huge desire to get a dominant car.
"So I'm relatively calm and I'm confident that things will go well, because Ferrari has the ability to build a winning car. It's the best team and I think all the necessary details are being looked at so nothing fails."
Despite the large performance gap from Red Bull to Ferrari in 2011, Alonso suggested that the Italian squad could easily close it down, based on the fact that they simply had more areas of the car to improve.
"I think we are going to go up," he grinned, "Red Bull has a car that is very well developed, a very good car. Improving that car is possible, and they will improve it, but they don't have such a big margin to improve, unlike us."
He went on: "We had aerodynamic problems when the windtunnel wasn't working well. We had a different philosophy to adapt to the Pirellis, a different philosophy for the suspension and many other things.
"So we have a big margin to improve. I think they will improve by X per cent, and we are going to improve by X by two, so it's all going to be much closer."
Alonso's 2011 season was his least successful since his depressing final season with Renault in 2009, with the Spaniard finishing down in fourth place in the championship.
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