Alonso: A little miracle that we are leading

After his team-mate Felipe Massa had finished in the FIA press conference, it was Fernando Alonso’s turn to face the media in the Scuderia Ferrari team tent in the Suzuka paddock. The hot topic today has been the recently announced driver moves for 2013 and the Spaniard was pressed for his views.

“I was a bit out of the normal world since Singapore, so I didn’t know everything that had been happening, apart from Hamilton signing for Mercedes and Perez for McLaren,” admitted the Ferrari driver. “But I didn’t hear what they said or what reasons were given. I think it’s normal for drivers to change, as part of their career. When the rumours started, I had said I felt it was good for Lewis to move on and for McLaren, they have experienced this before, with Prost leaving and Senna, then me, now Lewis. It’s fourteen years since McLaren has won a Constructors’ championship, sometimes in years when they have had the best car and I’m sure Lewis wants to win. He did a great job with McLaren, winning races and a title and he is considered one of the best drivers. I expect him to be very competitive next year at Mercedes and a real contender for the championship.”

All that is in the future and this year’s titles are still very open. “It’s a little miracle that we are leading the championship at the moment,” claimed Fernando. “We have come a long way since the first six races, when we were not even getting to Q3 and were 1.5 seconds slower than the best. Now the car has improved and we are more regularly on the podium and we are more optimistic, but we have to see what we can do from now to the end. If we win the title, it will be a miracle, but if we don’t we will have done our best, because I believe that up to this point, we have had 14 perfect races. So we must make no mistakes in the last six, keep calm and bring home as many points as possible on Sunday: sometimes we will be fourth, sometimes second. Depending on the race, depending on which rivals are doing what, we will see if we are aggressive or defensive in the races. In Singapore for example, we were aggressive at the start to make up for a bad qualifying, but in the final stages Button and Vettel were too far ahead so there was no point taking risks anymore.”

The media are keen to suggest that this is Fernando’s best season in F1 in terms of his driving, but the man himself would not make such a bold statement. “Every year you improve and learn from your mistakes,” he said. “So far this year we have been quite consistent and got the maximum out of the car, so I am very pleased with this, not just personally in terms of my driving, but also for the team, because here at the track, in all areas, we maximised the points. So far, the whole package, driver, team, strategy, tyre management have benefited from what we learned last year.”