Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso says he’s fully motivated to go one step better in 2013 after finishing as last year’s Formula One runner-up.
The Spaniard fell agonisingly short of the F1 title in 2013, pushing Sebastian Vettel all the way until the dramatic final race in Brazil.
“Every year you start with a fresh motivation. It doesn’t matter really what happened the previous season or how you finish championship,” Alonso said ahead of the opening Grand Prix of 2013 in Australia.
“It is my fourth year at Ferrari – in two of the three occasions we fight for the championship and we finish second both times, so we really need to change this.
“This year we have a better car to start the championship, we just need to keep improving race by race.
“The motivation is very high, the team is hungry for success after a very good period in the last three years and we really need to come back to this moment and hopefully it will be first this year.”
The Spaniard has previously said his Ferrari wasn’t fast enough to help him contend for the title, but he has been enthused by their testing ahead of the new season.
“Maybe we are not the fastest but we are not the fastest but we are not 1.5 seconds behind as we were last year. If we fight last year until the last race with that gap I’m much more optimistic,” he said.