Indian GP: Fernando Alonso defiant over diminishing title hopes

Vettel took another commanding win at the Buddh circuit on Sunday to increase his lead over Alonso to 13 points with three races to go.

The German has outscored Alonso 100 to 48 in the last four races and will head into next weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as the hot favourite for another victory.

"Nothing changed in one race," said Alonso about his championship hopes. "There are 75 points and we are 13 behind and we know we need to improve.

"We are not fast enough, especially on Saturday, but we can improve the situation in Abu Dhabi or USA.

"As we saw with Mark [Webber] with the KERS problem, it can happen to Seb or it can happen to us, so I am optimistic."

Alonso conceded however that Ferrari needs to take a step forward in order to be able to fight Red Bull and not just limit the damage in the remaining races.

"I think we need to bring some new parts to Abu Dhabi and hopefully improve a little bit the competitiveness of the car and get closer to Red Bulls on Saturday and hopefully Sunday as well," he said.

"There are three races remaining and the championship is the main target. We need to recover some points. It would be nice to finish in front of Seb there and if we win even better. For that we need to make a step forward as at the moment we are not able to win."

"I think Brazil will be quite good and hopefully I am going to be happy."

The Spaniard was nonetheless encouraged by his race pace after being able to beat Mark Webber and stay relatively close to Vettel.

"I think it is good news for us seeing that we could fight Red Bull in the race," he said.