‘If he’s trying to put pressure’ - Ferrari boss shrugs off Fernando Alonso’s claim

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has responded to Fernando Alonso’s claim about the team’s prospects for the upcoming F1 races.

Speaking after the Dutch Grand Prix, the Aston Martin driver made a bold prediction that Ferrari would be the team to beat at the Italian Grand Prix - their home race - and the upcoming Singapore Grand Prix.

Ferrari have lost ground to Red Bull since the start of the season and appear to have been overtaken by McLaren and Mercedes in the competitive order. 

The Italian outfit claimed an unexpected podium at Zandvoort, having recovered well from a dire qualifying performance, with Charles Leclerc ending up a second off the pace in sixth and Carlos Sainz dumped out in Q2.

Alonso claimed Ferrari “will be the favourites” in two of the next three races.

“I think the top four teams, maybe Mercedes, are a little bit up and down, but McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari, they are podium contenders every weekend,” he said.

“The next two races [not including Baku], for example, Ferrari should be the car to beat. What we saw last year in Monza and Singapore, Leclerc's win in Monaco this year, for Singapore, I think they will be the favourites.”

Ferrari team principal Vasseur was asked about Alonso’s comments but was quick to downplay any suggestions that his team are favourites.

“If he’s trying to put pressure, he has to be sure that I won’t read the Twitter of Fernando Alonso,” Vasseur said.

“I don’t have Twitter, but I don’t need to have someone telling me that we are the favourite or not.

“We will have exactly the same approach in any case. I hope that we will be in a better shape in the next two or three events.

“We were in a much better shape last year on these tracks.

“Again, it’s a matter of details. The fact that we are in a better shape on the short corner will help us. If we are able to do a step of one or two tenths, it’s a game changer.

“We know also that everybody is improving. We know also that today we had still a big gap with Lando and that we were quite far away. It means that we have a lot of work to do.

“I will never go to Monza, Baku or whatever with the feeling that it will be an easy one.”