• Chinese Grand Prix - FP2

Ferrari still off the pace despite updates - Alonso

Fernando Alonso: "There's a lot to do if we want to have a good qualifying" © Getty Images

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• Race:
• Chinese Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Ferrari is lacking performance after Friday practice at the Chinese Grand Prix, according to Fernando Alonso.

He set the tenth fastest time in second practice, 1.343s off pace-setter Michael Schumacher, after Ferrari spent the morning session gathering data on a raft of updates for the F2012. But despite the new additions to the F2012, Alonso does not think the car is suited to the Shanghai International Circuit.

"We definitely lack a bit of performance: we will try and find it for tomorrow, as well as trying to sort out the balance of the car, especially in terms of its grip," he said. "There's a lot to do if we want to have a good qualifying."

He added: "Felipe [Massa] and I split the workload on track and now, this afternoon it is down to the engineers to analyse the data and take the best decisions for tomorrow, both in terms of the updates we have brought for this race and from what we have learned regarding the tyres. It rained in the morning and this slowed the programme a bit, but all the same we managed to complete it in the second session."

However, technical Pat Fry is confident the updates will deliver a boost in performance over the course of the weekend.

"We have brought some updates here for the F2012 which should provide an improvement in terms of performance, compared to the first two races: the first evaluation that we can make after these three hours of free practice is a positive one, but clearly we have hours of work ahead of us this afternoon and tonight to complete an in-depth analysis.

"On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that the characteristics of this track seem to be less suited to our car than Malaysia. Taking these two factors into consideration, I am not expecting anything new in terms of our positions on the grid: at the moment, our realistic expectation is somewhere between seventh and twelfth place, as indeed we were in Sepang."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.