Ind GP – Race weekend recap – Alonso

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso knows he’s in a fight to take his third Formula One World Championship.

The Spaniard had led much of the season, until a recent bolt of form from Red Bull has left him vulnerable.

Alonso has only been able to watch on as his lead in the championship fell and fell and was then eventually taken by Sebastian Vettel and can now only watch as the German, extends that lead.

Alonso knows Vettel has the best car, but he won’t give up the fight despite at times having to be content to sit behind both Red Bull’s and McLaren’s on the grid like he had to do in India.

With Vettel on pole, Webber second, Hamilton third and Button fourth, the title picture didn’t look great for Alonso after qualifying.

If the race had finished the same way, Vettel would extend his lead by 15 points, so it was obvious why Alonso was disappointed on Saturday evening.

?We tried to get the most out of what we had, but there was no way we could be ahead of the Red Bulls and McLarens. In the end, fifth place is not so bad, because it would have been easy to end up even further back if anything had gone wrong. Clearly, finishing ahead of Red Bull is our aim, but today it was impossible to fight them, at least in qualifying: when we had a similar car, it was possible to fight with Vettel and we have even been ahead of them, but now we are fighting against Newey [Red Bull designer/engineer] and, at the moment we cannot match him. he told formula1.com.

Many people in the Formula One paddock regard Fernando Alonso as the best driver on the track, his combination of sheer race pace over one lap, together with his consistent race pace and race craft has seen the Spaniard drag an often poor Ferrari in comparison to its competitors onto the podium.

In India he did it again, for the tenth time this season. It started with a move that saw him and the two McLaren’s of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button go three-wide during the opening lap of the Grand Prix.

As the race unfolded he also got beyond Mark Webber and he went on to finish in second place. After potentially looking at losing out on 15 points to Vettel, he eventually gave up just 7.

?We can fight the Red Bulls, but at the moment, we still don?t have a car capable of winning. Once again this year we have seen that, in the race, the situation is much better than in qualifying. A great start, a great first lap, a good top speed and the right tyre management produced, along with me driving at 120 percent for each of the sixty race laps, this second place. We did what we could, as at every race: if, come the end of the championship we will have won, then no one will be able to say it was down to mistakes from the others, but because we always did the maximum.