De la Rosa praises Alonso's fast learning

By Matt Beer Saturday, April 28th 2007, 08:21 GMT

McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa says he is amazed at the speed with which Fernando Alonso has settled into the team.

The Spaniard, who has been part of the McLaren-Mercedes line-up since 2003, said that he had not expected his countryman to gel with the squad so rapidly given his relative lack of pre-season acclimatisation time.

"For Fernando it is incredible how quickly he has learnt everything about the team, when you consider he only had one day testing in December last year and hasn't really had a long time with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, but he has already won a race," said de la Rosa.

McLaren's decision to sign Alonso and Lewis Hamilton for 2007 meant it was starting a season with a completely fresh driver line-up for the first time since Ron Dennis took over in 1980. But de la Rosa said that the new drivers had slotted straight into the organisation.

"It doesn't feel, working with them or seeing how they are getting on with their engineers and the team, like these have been their first races for the team," he said.

"Fernando learns anything very quickly, and Lewis has been around the team for some time."

De la Rosa added that he was pleased McLaren had so far prevented the widely-anticipated Ferrari dominance of the new season.

"We have been very solid from the start and we've proved people who thought that Ferrari were going to walk away with the first few races wrong," he said.

"I think we have surprised many people. Fernando and Lewis have done a very good job.

"We are where we deserve to be, but we have to focus on making sure we maintain, well improve, our performance as a team."

 

Well, I imagine it is no fluke that Alonso is a 2-time WC...

 

Couple this little tidbit with Lewis Hamilton's history of absolutely dominating every racing series he's entered on his (rapid) way up the ladder, and we have the makings of a very sweet season for McLaren.

 

Alonso will not be world champ this year. He is only brilliant when having someone to fight with a bigger ego than his - say Schumacher. Kimi cares less about any of this and cannot give Alonso the ego fight he needs. I say Hamilton and Massa and Kimi will fight til the end with Hamilton winning in the end. There. I said it.

 

Alonso IS fighting someone with a bigger ego than his and Schumacher's combined. Flavio Briatore. He wants to win without Flav by his side and be one of a very select group to win a WC with two different teams.

 

Hamilton will not be allowed to win the WC unless Alonso is out of the fight. This isn't Hamilton's year. Granted, unless he has some major character flaw that comes to light, by the looks of how good he is, he will go down in history as one of the greats. He has a very long career ahead of him. He can be patient.

I hope this is Massa's year. He shows signs of real greatness at times but tends to self destruct at times.

 

It better , as i need my bottle from the finn...