F1: Alonso Still Hard To Beat, Says Horner

Formula 1

F1: Alonso Still Hard To Beat, Says Horner

Red Bull chief calls Fernando Alonso a formidable opponent...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted October 08, 2012 Balen (BEL)

Red Bull-Renault driver Sebastian Vettel (Left) of Germany is congratulated by his team principal Christian Horner (Right) after the awards ceremony for the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix. (Photo: Getty Images)

Christian Horner says Red Bull does not underestimate Fernando Alonso and Ferrari, despite Sebastian Vettel making big inroads into the Spaniard’s championship lead after two consecutive wins.

Vettel is now four points – or an eighth place – behind Alonso with just five races still to come.

“I think before the summer break Fernando had a significant lead,” said Horner after the Suzuka race. “And since then we were second in Spa, were unlucky in Monza but should have scored reasonable points, we won in Singapore, we won here. We’ve managed to eat into that gap, and hopefully we’ve got some circuits coming up that should suit the characteristics of our package in the remaining races.

“Fernando is a very shrewd and formidable opponent. Over a season luck tends to balance itself out, and Sebastian’s had two DNFs because of reliability, Fernando’s been unlucky with Grosjean, who seems to be a common factor in some of the incidents, and the puncture that he picked up today.

“It will be down to what the two of them do on track now, and the relative performances of the cars over the remaining five races.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.