Hockenheim, 22 July – Hot and sunny in Silverstone two weeks ago, cool and wet here in Hockenheim: the world of Formula 1 is full of surprises, but no surprise that, as usual, Fernando Alonso met the press at the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro Media motorhome this afternoon in the Hockenheimring paddock. “I think it is always the right time to do it, to get the good results, not just here at this point in the season,” said the Spaniard when asked if scoring a lot of points here was vital for the championship. “It is not too late and will not be too late until the last two or three races, as there are still nine races to go with plenty of points on the table, so we must try and score points more regularly, as the zero score in Valencia and Silverstone was not very realistic; it did not represent what we can do and Ferrari is in a better position than it looks in the classification.”

If anyone was expecting to find a beaten man in Alonso, after a string of difficult weekends, they were wrong. “There have been some frustrating moments in the last two races, because we were having a very good weekend in Valencia, but came away with hardly any points, then the same at Silverstone, zero points after finally putting the Red Bulls under pressure,” he admitted. “But as I said I am very happy with the car now and still very motivated. Now we can fight for the championship and I am actually more confident about that than I was before, because even if the points gap is bigger, our car is improving race by race and so there is a possibility of being on the podium regularly. I think we can be very strong for the coming races. We cannot make up the gap in just one weekend but hopefully soon we can fight and close the gap. This weekend, the weather could play a role, as can the tyres, as we have the very hard and the supersoft compounds, which might make it harder to balance the car on both types of rubber. So there are many factors that we have to manage perfectly, if we are to win this weekend.

We just need to produce consistent races as we have four guys in front of us. If we do well, they cannot win all of them and if we just concentrate on our job and capitalise on our work on Sunday afternoons, we will be in a strong position again soon.”