Fernando Alonso claims 'Ferrari hold luxury' ahead of major F1 unknown

Fernando Alonso has claimed that Ferrari has a "luxury" heading into the wet Miami Grand Prix, believing it is the only team to run the current cars in the rain.

Thunderstorms are forecast for race day in Miami, with the FIA moving the race forward by three hours to 1300 local time, with many drivers not yet having the chance to sample the new cars in the wet.

Ferrari has done so, with Lewis Hamilton completing a two-day Pirelli wet-weather test at Fiorano in April - with Alonso indicating that this was a "luxury" no other team had had.

However, the Aston Martin driver is wrong, with Racing Bulls conducting its own Pirelli wet weather test at Suzuka following the Japanese GP. 

"Let's say that in dry conditions, we have no chance, and in wet conditions, probably we don't have a chance either," Alonso began to media, including RacingNews365. 

"But you never know what can happen in a wet race, and it will be the first time with these cars and these rules for us to drive in the wet.

"Only Ferrari had that luxury with unlimited tests with Pirelli and other things, but we just need to take the opportunities with the race.

"We are not Ferrari, so we need to learn from that."

As for his own qualifying, Alonso was 17th fastest, but did out-qualify both Cadillacs in the AMR26 machine, which will be 16th with Isack Hadjar's disqualification, as he recounted a major gearbox issue. 

"I think the biggest problem for me, to be honest, in qualifying was the gearbox," he said.

"It was for the very first time, because we didn't have any problem the rest of the sessions this weekend, but now in quali, it was impossible to drive, so I lost sync in every braking point.

"So I have no acceleration out of the corners, and the downshifts were all over the place; it was very random. 

"Sometimes I have push, sometimes I have rear locking, so that was a surprise, a bad surprise.

"So let's try to understand and fix it, especially if it rains. I think we cannot race with this level of random downshifts that we have at the moment."