Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Ferrari not conceding defeat in title race

Fernando Alonso has refused to concede defeat in the race for the Formula 1 world championship, despite a disastrous Belgian Grand Prix

The Spaniard crashed out of the race while the track was at its wettest and now lies 41 points behind winner Lewis Hamilton, who leads the championship with only six races remaining.

However, the two time champion still believes he can take the fight to Hamilton and the McLaren driver's chief title rival Mark Webber.

"For us it is still a possibility," Alonso said. "There are the same five drivers that can win and our chance is still 50/50, just as it was before the race.

"As we said before this GP, there were seven races and now there are six where everything matters and who does the best job will be champion.

"In the first of the seven we did not do well enough and some others did better. Jenson [Button], [Sebastian] Vettel and me, after this first race of seven. were not good enough. So for the remaining six we need to make up the ground that we lost here."

Alonso said that his crash, which came after he lost control on the kerbs exiting Les Combes on lap 38, had done nothing to affect his title momentum heading into Ferrari's home race at Monza in two weeks' time.

"Only two of the five competitors for the championship scored points [in Belgium], and in the next race maybe it is the opposite and we'll go back to the positions we had yesterday [Saturday] afternoon, where we were all close in the points," he said.

Ferrari's constructors' championship hopes also took a blow at Spa with Felipe Massa the team's only finisher in fourth place. The Italian squad trails leader Red Bull by 80 points.

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domineicali, however, echoed Alonso's sentiments, and pointed to the 2007 season, in which Kimi Raikkonen made up 17 points on Lewis Hamilton in the final two races to become world champion, as proof of Alonso's potential.

"This weekend definitely did not end well for us and the situation in both championships is certainly more difficult, but it is still not impossible for us to reach our targets," he said.

"For those with short memories, I remember that three years ago, we found ourselves in a much worse situation and we all know how it went in the end."

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Teams won't favour title chasers yet
Next article Sunday press conference - Belgium

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe