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Ferrari still trying to understand 'complex' F2012 - Alonso

The F2012 is a complete departure from last year's Ferrari © Press Association

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• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Ferrari is still some way from having a full understanding of its new car, according to Fernando Alonso.

After struggling to match Red Bull and McLaren throughout 2011, Ferrari took a radical approach to its 2012 car, adopting an "aggressive" design. At the end of the first pre-season test Alonso said his team understood just 20% of the F2012, but was happy he would have an easier time at this week's test in Barcelona.

However, Ferrari is still running up to 50 items for comparison per day while rivals McLaren and Red Bull have turned their focus to race simulations after finding a good baseline already.

"It's true that we keep getting information out of the car, information that we should already have in our pocket, but the car seems quite complex and we need to keep understanding better what the behaviour is," Alonso said. "But then I remember last year when we did a race distance in the first day and we were one and half seconds behind Red Bull in Australia. Race distances are always welcome, but I would prefer to have a performing car and then we find reliability than have a very strong car that is slow."

Asked if there was a danger Ferrari could be chasing Red Bull again at the start of this season, Alonso said: "We will see. I think it's too early to say still. Definitely our targets are very ambitious, that's normal for Ferrari. You always try to win straight away in the first race of the championship if you want to be a contender.

"That was the target over the winter but at the moment maybe we don't know exactly where we are. Maybe we are not the fastest but definitely we are not the slowest. We need to wait and see at the final test and the hotter temperatures in Australia - Q3 in Melbourne will be the time to see where you are. Red Bull look competitive - that's not a surprise - it's been continuous in the last two or three years and it's difficult to get it wrong completely so they will always be there.

"McLaren and Ferrari need to be a little bit more creative to catch up with Red Bull and I think that is what both teams have done. McLaren and Ferrari chose different solutions, different philosophies maybe, but we will see the results first in Melbourne and more importantly in November [at the end of the title race]."

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