Ferrari test driver Marc Gené has revealed that the
Scuderia had ‘expected much more' from
Fernando Alonso during the French Grand Prix last weekend – as a member of the Spaniard's own team has suggested he is perhaps not giving 100 per cent.
Alonso qualified a brilliant third at Magny-Cours,
Renault's home race, but following a poor start produced indifferent form throughout the grand prix itself, with only the eighth-fastest lap time to his name. Worse still, a late error when the 26-year-old ran wide at the Adelaide hairpin enabled under-fire team-mate
Nelsinho Piquet to nip by and steal seventh place, relegating Alonso to a lowly eighth spot at the chequered flag.
Countryman Gené – a test driver for Ferrari – wrote in his column for Spanish newspaper
El Mundo that the former double world champion's Sunday showing had been the ‘negative surprise' of the race around the Circuit de Nevers, where Alonso had triumphed back in 2005
en route to the first of his two, back-to-back world championship crowns with the
Régie. The 19-time grand prix winner has on a number of occasions been linked with a move to Maranello in 2009.
“We expected much more from him,” Gené reflected. “Even at Ferrari we thought he was going to be our competitor.”
Alonso himself reasoned that Renault cannot expect to finish up on the podium in its current situation, with the Enstone-based outfit having notched up a paltry twelve points from the opening eight grands prix of the present campaign, fewer than half of the 28 it had tallied at the same stage last year.
“On Saturday and before the race we were optimistic,” the man from Oviedo mused afterwards, talking to
Telecinco, “but we need to be realistic.
“We are really only fighting in the middle of the grid; if you are slow and you can't get into a rhythm, your strategy doesn't matter.”
