By Sam Cooper
April 5 2007

Spain's reigning world champion Fernando Alonso has named Ferrari as the ones to beat as he starts the Malaysian Grand Prix, according to the Spaniard he isn't banking on Kimi's engine from expiring.

"It is nothing new that Ferrari are stronger than everyone else at the start of the season and it is not a surprise for anybody that they come here as favourites again and are ready to win," said Alonso. "What we have to do is close the gap. We don't know how much it will be in this race, but we saw in Australia that it was seven or eight tenths."

"For sure we did one week testing here, we did some developments on the car and improved the car but for sure everybody did the same. I hope the gap is less, but for sure there are no surprises for this Grand Prix. We will see a similar picture to Australia, with Ferrari in front of everybody."

"Well, we will see. I think the rules are the same for everybody so hopefully if this floor issue is fixed, and it is the same rule for everybody, then it can be a help for us. Maybe they had some advantage there, but I don't think it will be a change like day and night. I don't know if they will lose performance but if they do then I think it will not be a significant performance loss that we can win the races now."