Alonso: “The fight for the title is still open”

Fernando Alonso expects a tough weekend in Abu Dhabi where the 1 F2010 drivers' championship will be decided. The Spaniard managed to minimize the damage today in Brazil with third place behind Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. Red Bull won the constructors' championship but the Ferrari driver is still leading the drivers' championship with 8 points ahead of Webber and 15 over Vettel.

“If Mark wins in Abu Dhabi I'll have to finish second to win, fifth place if Seb wins so we'll see what happens” declared Alonso.

“We saw today that things can change easily, with safety cars, something can change, something else can't. If you make the wrong decision at the wrong time you can find yourself eighth or ninth and say goodbye to the title. It will be a stressful weekend for all of us, but this is F1 and anything can happen next weekend. Let's all start from scratch and see who will do the best job in seven days."

Alonso could have stayed closer to the Red Bulls if he hadn't wasted time overtaking Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg in the opening laps: “I think we lost in the first laps of the race trying to overtake Hamilton and Hulkenberg,” said the Ferrari driver. “Those 10-12 seconds were impossible to recover, and maybe we were 1 or two tenths faster in some laps so when you lost 12 seconds it was over. We had a chance with the safety car but we were in the wrong position with too many laps between me and Mark, overtaking those seven cars meant a gap of six, seven seconds. Overall it was a good race for us, being on the podium after overtaking Hamilton and Hulkenberg...We knew it wouldn't be easy but in terms of points we are extremely satisfied" concluded Alonso.