Fernando Alonso lights up Singapore with another win
Fernando Alonso never lost the belief, and yesterday’s win at the Singapore Grand Prix has made him the driver to beat for the rest of the season.
The Spaniard slammed his Ferrari on pole position after the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel made a mistake, which would prove costly as Alonso maintained track position for the whole race, which was short of the two-hour mark to keep Vettel at bay.
Since the controversial win at Germany- where Ferrari instructed Felipe Massa to let Alonso through to win and were fined $100,000 for team orders- Alonso has scored more points than his rivals Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Vettel, with three wins and one second place.
As a two-time world champion, Alonso has the all-round package and used all of his experience to take his fourth win of the season, and his second at Singapore in the space of three years. He trails championship leader Webber by 11 points and moved up to second in the drivers’ standings.
“This win is very significant,” said a delighted Alonso. “We wanted to confirm our success in Monza at a completely different type of track and we succeeded at the end of a very hard and extremely stressful race, both for me and for the car, on a track that I like a lot and which is well suited to my driving style.”
The top five drivers are now separated by the equivalent of one race win - 25 points -but Alonso still believes the championship race is wide open. “There are four races to go and the championship is very open. The dance towards the title sees the contenders see-sawing up and down, although Mark is still holding on to a slight lead,” he said.
The remaining tracks on paper will suit Red Bull, but Alonso’s Ferrari showed it has the speed to compete with them and even go faster. “The F10 has improved a lot thanks to the work of all our engineers in Maranello and here at the track, and I am happy for that because now we can be on the pace at every type of circuit. We are not considered favourites for the races that lie ahead of us, but none of them are anything to be frightened about,” Alonso said.
While Alonso has taken back-to-back pole positions and race wins, Hamilton has collected back-to-back retirements. The McLaren driver’s collision with Webber on lap 36 ended his drive under the floodlights, and puts him on the back foot for the championship, dropping down to third in the standings and 20 points behind. The collision was judged by the race stewards as a racing incident. The 2008 world champion is not giving up on the fight. “I guess I’ll just have to keep my head down and hope for the best,” he said.
“I’m not going to think specifically about the world championship right now, I’m just going to try to enjoy the rest of the season - and whatever happens happens. But I’ll keep fighting to the end, because it’s the only way I know,” Hamilton added.
Vettel pushed Alonso for the whole grand prix, but despite not picking up maximum points, he is satisfied with his second-place finish. “I tried to push Fernando as hard as I could into a mistake, but he didn’t make a major one and it’s hard to overtake here – it would have been too risky. In the end we got second and some good points,” said Vettel.
The young German is 21 points behind his Red Bull teammate and is optimistic for the rest of the season. “It’s good to get points for the team, it helps us a lot in the constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship is still open.”
Webber did enough once again to keep his championship lead by finishing third, and was lucky not to retire when he hit Hamilton. “I got caught up behind one of the Virgin cars, he was doing his best, but Lewis [Hamilton] got a good run on me and unfortunately we made contact,” he said.
The Australian felt he achieved the best he could from the race. “Fernando [Alonso] and Sebastian [Vettel] drove fantastic races today. They drove well all weekend and it was a good race for everyone to see, I’m very happy with third,” said Webber.
Reigning world champion Button had a quiet race, and couldn’t match the pace of the front-runners. The McLaren driver finished fourth, and is the one with the most work to do, as he is 25 points off the top. “My championship hopes were dented a little bit by Mark [Webber] finishing ahead of me, but the points gap to the front is just a race victory away,” he said.
Like the other championship contenders, he is not giving up hope as well. “It shows there’s still everything to play for - one bad race can cost you a lot of points.”
As is the case with Formula One, nothing can be taken for granted, and the tightest battle for the championship for many years moves onto Japan in two weeks time.
Are we any closer to knowing who will become world champion? Not close at all.
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