Fernando Alonso has written off Ferrari’s chance of closing the gap to leaders Mercedes in 2014 after he raced to fifth place at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Alonso started the race from fourth place but was quickly overhauled by Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton before setting about doing “71 qualifying laps,” on his way to fifth, 25 seconds behind race winner Nico Rosberg.
“To close the gap to Mercedes [is] impossible,” said the Spaniard.
“It’s too much difference. We cannot touch the engine, we cannot do big changes and they are over 200 points ahead of us in the constructors’ championship.”
Alonso said that the difference between the power difference between his Ferrari and the Mercedes engines in the cars of Hamilton and Felipe Massa was ‘unbelievable.’