Alonso Happy for Schumacher to Win

The Spaniard knows that anyone who takes points off McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen will be doing himself and Renault a favour as the Formula One title battle enters the decisive stages.

"If Michael wins, I will be very happy," the 24-year-old told reporters after Schumacher qualified on pole position for the first time this year.

Alonso could be the sport's youngest champion within months.

Seven-times champion Schumacher is 40 points adrift of Alonso with six races remaining after Hungary while Raikkonen is 36 points behind the Spaniard.

Renault are 22 points ahead of McLaren in the Constructors' Championship.

Alonso qualified sixth on Saturday, a disappointment although he won from that position at the Nurburgring in May after Raikkonen crashed out with suspension failure while leading.

The Spaniard, winner of six of the 12 races so far, suffered understeer and drifted on to the grass at the last corner in qualifying, a costly excursion that lost precious time.

Bottled Up

Renault's engineering director Pat Symonds said the problem probably cost Alonso four grid positions.

Finn Raikkonen will be fourth and a row ahead of his rival.

The big danger for Alonso is to be bottled up behind the Toyota of Italian Jarno Trulli, who qualified third, while others break away and create such a big lead he cannot catch up.

"The grid is not easy for us because even if we have different strategies to them, maybe we cannot take the maximum from our car because of the people in front of us," said Alonso.

"I think I have to concentrate on Kimi and see if I can overtake him at the start. If not I need to be behind him and not have people between us. The first two corners will be very important.

"We need to take the risk. If we are sixth and we are conservative, it will not be a good result at all," said the Spaniard.

"I'll have to be aggressive tomorrow, especially in the first two corners, and from there the race can be a little bit easier or maybe more difficult. We'll see."