• German Grand Prix

Ferrari still needs to improve - Alonso

Fernando Alonso won in Germany but thinks Red Bull and McLaren were quicker © Sutton Images

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Fernando Alonso says Ferrari still has plenty of work to do despite extending his lead in the drivers' championship to 34 points with victory at the German Grand Prix.

Alonso took pole in wet conditions at Hockenheim and then held off challenges from Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button for victory in the race. However, Alonso reckons Red Bull and McLaren still have quicker cars.

"In the wet the car seems competitive and we are fighting for the top, but in the dry we saw at Silverstone that Red Bull was a little bit quicker than us and Mark went on to victory ahead of us. We also saw today that Sebastian and the McLarens had a little bit of extra pace when they were in free air. So we know that we are not the quickest and we need to work for that.

"We cannot forget where we were in Jerez and in the beginning of February - two seconds off the pace, we didn't understand the car and there were a lot of things in the car that were not working. We did a lot of work in Maranello to improve the situation and now halfway through the season we are in a good position in terms of points and we need that last step in terms of performance."

He said that he was not able to relax at any point in the race as both Vettel and Button closed in on the back of his car at different stages of the race.

"It was a difficult race with a lot of pressure always behind and we didn't have a single lap where we can relax a little bit," Alonso added. "The car was performing well in all conditions this weekend and also in the race it was fine. We had a good start, good calls for the pit stops and also good pit stops themselves. At the end we managed to keep the position. There was only one point for overtaking, which was at turn six and we had a good exit always from turn three."

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