Ferrari made five updates for China

Despite Alonso's impressive drive last time out, the Scuderia know they need to continue to develop the F2012 if they want to keep battling for race victories.

"We are constantly working on improving the issues we have," technical director Pat Fry told the official Ferrari website.

"New parts are coming through and we are trying to get them to the race track as quickly as possible. We will have five updates for China, some are quite visible others less so. Then there will be a bigger upgrade package for Spain. It would be nice to have them earlier, but we have already brought forward some parts we were developing for Spain and we should have them in China."

The Englishman admits that while there have been several positives during the first two races of the season, quite a few things were not up to scratch.

"If I was asked to rate the overall performance of the Scuderia so far, I'd mark it differently depending on different sections of the company," Fry said.

"The team, the mechanics at the track have worked very well: in Melbourne we had the quickest pit stops and in Malaysia the speed of the pit crew and the strategy saw us gain position or time on others every time we pitted.

"However, ranking the actual performance of the package, I'd rate it much lower. Another plus is the way the team is responding, dealing with the stresses of trying to play catch-up. The Manufacturing department, working on some of the more aggressive requests we've made, has responded very well. So, it's been a great team effort, but we haven't done a good job in getting the car out on track to be quickest from the start."

Although Alonso leads the Championship, the McLaren duo of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton have been the ones to beat so far this season, much to Fry's surprise.

"I was slightly surprised by Red Bull's comparative lack of pace," he said.

"McLaren were relatively quick but I would have put these two teams the other way round if you'd asked me a month ago.

"Mercedes also seem quick, but they have similar rear tyre degradation to the past, so while they are good in qualifying, their race pace drops away and Lotus is the other team that has done a good job, looking quick from the very first test in Jerez."

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