Fernando Alonso says that the top teams are closer than they look at the Nurburgring, and has played down the superiority that Renault has shown so far this year.
On Thursday he said he didn't expect Ferrari to be a season long threat, despite the Imola performance. But after trading the top 'race driver' time with Michael Schumacher on Friday, he admits that the Italian team will be competitive. Fernando was just 0.040s quicker than Michael in the afternoon session, although both men were beaten by Alex Wurz, who was able to run new tyres on his Williams.
"There's a lot of competition coming into this weekend," he said. "I think. Ferrari is strong, we saw today, so we have a good competition again in this race I believe. Now it's down to the tyres, how they manage to do the whole race.
"I think McLaren will have a better day tomorrow, maybe today they had much more fuel than the others. So I think the competition will be very tough tomorrow for qualifying, and Sunday for the race."