Fernando Alonso believes Lewis Hamilton is still in the championship fight – Formula 1 news
Ferrari driver, Fernando Alonso believes that Lewis Hamilton of McLaren is still in the championship fight despite his strong lead over the British driver in the drivers’ championship.
Alonso faced an unfortunate retirement in the Japanese Grand Prix due to which he lost some crucial points in the championship battle. Although, he is still leading the drivers’ rankings but his lead has reduced to just 4 points after Sebastian Vettel of
Red Bull Racing scored an incredible win in the preceding race held at Suzuka.
After the last race, the Spaniard and the veteran German driver have been considered as the most favourite contenders in the title chase. However, the 31-year-old insisted that if the performance of the Woking based team is kept in mind, there is a strong
chance that Hamilton can still give a tough to his major opponents in the remainder of the season.
“I don't know how many points he is behind now,” Alonso said. “I think it's more difficult, because now it's not only one driver ahead who you need to take some points off now, we are two more or less with the same points ahead and then he is back so for
sure chance for him is a little bit lower. But if we see the form of McLaren and Lewis from before Suzuka, there's still plenty of time an plenty of points to do it so I think they still have the possibility.”
On the other hand, the defending champion also said that the 2008 world champion has got the potential to reduce the gap to the drivers ahead of him in the forthcoming races. In addition, he said that the British squad has got the car which is competent
enough to challenge any other contender. Therefore, he thinks that they are definitely one of the toughest rivals in this year’s title chase.
“I think they are still fighting for championship,” Vettel said.
The current season so far has been full of surprises and it will be very interesting to see how all the contenders perform in the remaining five grands prix.
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