Fernando Alonso insists the new Ferrari is not slow and has played down reports his team is struggling.
While rivals Red Bull and McLaren appeared to get a good understanding of their cars at the first test at Jerez, Ferrari set itself a bigger challenge with a completely new and aggressive design. But Alonso insists his team has not faced as big a struggle as some have made out.
"There has been a tendency, especially from the media, to say that the car is bad and we are not having a good winter, but they don't understand," he told Marca. "We are very calm because the car is very complex and there's no reason to believe that it won't be quick. The thing that is costing all of us is to get back the grip lost at the rear of the car by the blown diffusers ban, but I think it will be recovered soon."
Alonso warned against reading too much into the results at the first three races, let alone the first three tests.
"Australia is a strange race because it's a different circuit, so we will begin to see things from the third race I think," he said. "What is important, if we cannot win immediately, is that no driver wins all three or four."
He added that any predictions ahead of Melbourne were pointless.
"At the moment the conclusions are zero - super-zero," Alonso said. "Hopefully we will not be seventh and everything else is guesswork. It is assumed that Red Bull will not be stuck in Q2 and that McLaren and Mercedes will not be far away, but these are only assumptions. Testing in Barcelona for us ended better than it started, but it's not as though we were in a tunnel and now we see the light. Our team is working hard and well."
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