F1: Alonso Still Upbeat On Championship Chances

Formula 1

F1: Alonso Still Upbeat On Championship Chances

Fernando Alonso trails World Championship leader Sebastian Vettel by just 13 points...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted November 01, 2012 Abu Dhabi (ARE)

Fernando Alonso sat out the first preseason test in Jerez. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Fernando Alonso was in an upbeat mood Thursday as he continued to insist that he can still win the World Championship.

Alonso says that Ferrari is pulling out all the stops for the end of the season.

“We believe and we trust in our job and our team,” he said in Abu Dhabi. “I think we’ve shown many times that we don’t give up, we will fight until the end, and when the things become stressful, when the things become difficult, I think we can deliver our 100 percent, and we’re sure that we will fight until the end. I think the team has a lot of experience, fighting for World Championships. Everyone is very motivated.

“I think in India we saw some good signs of recovering in terms of pace compared to Red Bull. We still need a couple more tenths, especially on Saturday. But there is a little bit of a step here, something also in the USA. I think things go up and down for everybody. Four consecutive ups for Red Bull, so we think they will go down before long.”

Intriguingly, Alonso was keen to point out that he didn’t expect to be able to beat Red Bull on pace, but wanted to be close enough to put pressure on Vettel – and take advantage of any mistakes.

“We tried to prepare for this race better than ever," the Spaniard said. "Every race we do, but we know the importance of these three races, so we’ve made some good preparations. There are some new parts coming that we will have to check tomorrow.

“We don’t think that we will close the gap completely to Red Bull from India, and five days later in Abu Dhabi to be competing with them with the same performance. I think there is not any magic button in F1, or any magic part.

“But we will try to get close to put some more pressure. I think they’ve had a very easy four races. So far, they have a lot of margin and can do maybe little mistakes with not any penalty, and we want to be so close to them to take the opportunity of everything that they don’t do perfect. So we need to find perfection this weekend, or these next three weekends, and be very close to them and attack all the race.”

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.