Motorsport

By James Foxall

25th July 2007

European Grand Prix winner Fern­ando Alonso has said the 2007 cham­pionship is still too close to call, even though he has closed to within two points of leader Lewis Hamilton.

The Spaniard admitted he had set­tled for a safe second place behind long-time leader Felipe Massa’s Ferrari when he spied a chance of victory.

“Every weekend is unpredictable,” he said. “Even here, Ferrari is very, very quick – quicker than us on track in normal conditions. Suddenly, you have a mechanical problem in Kimi Raikkonen’s car and rain at the end, and McLaren wins the race.”

He added: “I enjoyed it so much because I love the different weather conditions. I always like these types of races, and at one point, when I was second, I thought maybe it’s not the right time to rain, as I was happy with second place. Lewis was out of the points and Kimi as well, so for me eight points were good enough.”

After banging wheels as Alonso tried to pass Massa, the pair had a brief disagreement when the world champ accused his Ferrari rival of blocking him. He later apologised, and Massa said: “I don’t have anything against anybody. If he has apologised, that’s fine. He knows he wasn’t right.”

Pole sitter Raikkonen retired with hydraulic trouble while threaten­ing Alonso’s second place, and Lewis Hamilton had a torrid race after his heavy practice crash. But he refused to be downhearted after failing to score for the first time in his F1 career.

He said: “I came here sick, had one of my biggest-ever crashes, then got a puncture, went into the gravel and it started to rain. Today, I learned 10 times as much as in the last race.”