Alonso says Renault back on top

Alonso led the race early but the suffered his first retirement of the season due to a wheel nut failure. The blow of that was slightly softened by title rival Michael Schumacher dropping out of the race late on after a collision with Nick Heidfeld.

Despite failing to capitalise on his lead, and seeing Schumacher gifted a point following Robert Kubica's disqualification, Alonso thinks he saw enough to believe that Renault have got their title bid back on track.

"Ferrari were quicker than us in the last few races and they won all of them," he said when asked by autosport.com about the title fight. "Here, we were quicker than them and we didn't take any advantage.

"But I think at the end of the day we improved the car. We didn't make any wrong choice like we did in Hockenheim and when everything was normal, even in dry conditions, we were looking really good for the race.

"So, for the rest of the championship, I think we will be ahead."

Alonso currently has a 10-point advantage over Schumacher with five races to go.

Looking back at his race, where he confessed to having 'laughed' when Schumacher dropped out, Alonso said his car had been perfect.

"It's a strange feeling," he explained. "Obviously we were dominant and quickest by a long way, but unfortunately we didn't finish the race with something on the car at the second stop.

"First of all we thought it was the driveshaft, but it was a car failure (wheel nut). We will try and analyse what has happened and move on to the next race.

"I overtook 14 cars out there today, and a lot of them were in the first three or four laps. My car was perfect, it had much more grip than the others, so it was easy to overtake everybody.

"I was lucky to have a fantastic car today but unfortunately we didn't finish."