Fernando Alonso is banking on higher temperatures at this weekend's Italian Grand Prix helping Ferrari with its tyre warm-up issues.
Ferrari has struggled all year in cooler temperatures and much of its mid-season development was based on getting the tyres to work more effectively. It made progress with the issue but the last four races have been unusually cold, and after the Belgian Grand Prix team principal Stefano Domenicali admitted the medium compound tyres were still proving troublesome.
Alonso is expecting a competitive weekend among the top three teams but said the warmer weather in Italy would help.
"It should be better for us," he said. "For different reasons it seems that our car struggles a little bit with cold track temperatures and we had quite a difficult summer with four or five consecutive races where it was damp, it was raining, it was very cold and we took a little bit of time after the pit stops and in qualifying especially to get the performance out of the car, so it's good to know that here it will be a little bit warmer, but we don't know exactly the performance change.
"I don't think there will be anyone in a dominant position this weekend. It will be a very close battle as it has been in the last couple of race, with McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Mercedes, I guess, will be also very quick here with all the long straights, so it's going to be an interesting weekend and we have to do everything perfectly if we want to be at the front. If not you can be seventh or eighth very quickly."
And he said Ferrari would put extra effort into its home race in front of the Tifosi.
"I think there is a special atmosphere, a special motivation this weekend for all of us, starting from the mechanics and the engineers, they have their families in the grandstands, they have people they know in the paddock," he said. "We all do 100% every weekend we go, but here in Monza there is this extra care in everything we do and we want everything perfect, from tomorrow's practice to Sunday. So I'm sure that all of us will make an extra effort to do everything perfect this weekend."
Ferrari has shifted its focus to 2012 in recent months and Domenicali was quoted as saying the team will have an "unbeatable structure" next year. However, Alonso warned that nothing is guaranteed for 2012.
"For next year, definitely we are working very hard to be competitive right from the beginning and the aim and hard job that we have to do now in this next couple of months, in the winter testing and all the time we have available from now to the first race next year but it's impossible to be confident or to be sure in Formula One," he added. "It's a very complex sport and next year, even if you are confident, even if you work 24 hours a day, when you put the car on the track in February, you can always have some nice surprises but also some bad surprises.
"Let's hope that with the effort from all of us, we can be competitive from the beginning and it should be like that because I think we have the potential, the right people, we have the talented people in the team and all the facilities available to be competitive right from the beginning. As for this year, obviously with six races to go, seven with this one, we want to win races, no doubt, but we are also very realistic. We know the situation, we know that we were not very competitive in the last two or three Grands Prix and the updates in the car will be minimal from other teams now so we will all remain more or less similar, so it will depend track to track and how you adapt yourself or how much luck you have that weekend, so let's concentrate here in Monza, try to win this one and after that we will see."
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