Fernando Alonso believes pressure from rivals is exposing Red Bull to errors

With a pitstop mistake at the British Grand Prix having contributed to Sebastian Vettel not winning a race for only the third time this year, Alonso believes that Red Bull Racing are no longer in the super comfortable position that they were at the start of the season.

"For sure it's not as easy as when they were one second in front of everyone," said Alonso, when asked by AUTOSPORT if he felt that Red Bull Racing was now under real pressure.

"Now they are only a couple of tenths, and when you are only a couple of tenths ahead, it's not the same confidence when you do the lap, it's not the same to prepare the race, it's depends on the strategy, it depends on the stops.

"We saw in Silverstone this with the stop, we saw in Monaco also with some pressure that [Mark] Webber lost 20 seconds in a stop. So for sure in the races that we push them a little bit more, there is a possibility for some mistakes. In the races where they are so competitive, they do 1-2 very easy."

Although Alonso believes that his situation in the championship means that he must take every risk possible to try and close the gap to Vettel, he thinks he is not yet in a situation where it is win or bust for him.

"We will see how the weather develops and how competitive we can be in damp conditions or wet conditions," he explained. "Winning the race is always not easy at all and we need to be the fastest on the track at some point of the race.

"At the moment we are not the fastest. Red Bull was the fastest and McLaren were quite close, so we need to make a step forward in the race to move on if we need to win the race.

"With this rain, if we are on the track and we finish the race then I think some of the top three will not finish the race because I think it will be quite crazy in wet conditions. So maybe a podium with someone DNF is a good result."

With Alonso's Ferrari relatively easy on its tyres, Alonso concedes that a wet race will not be as good for his team as a dry event.

"I prefer a dry race. If it rains it's not like we will have problems and I'm not too worried but it's true that when it rained in Canada Vettel opened a gap easily and at Silverstone when it rained the Red Bull ran away and Hamilton passed me quite easily. In the dry we were a lot faster so if it rains there are less chances."