Greater Noida: Sebastian Vettel’s victory at the Indian Grand Prix might have helped him open up a 13 points cushion at the top of the table, but Fernando Alonso of Ferrari his closest rival to the championship said that he is still very optimistic about his chances as there are still three races left.

“We can fight the Red Bulls, but at the moment, we still don’t have a car capable of winning. Once again this year we have seen that, in the race, the situation is much better than in qualifying. A great start, a great first lap, a good top speed and the right tyre management produced, along with me driving at 120% for each of the sixty race laps, this second place. We did what we could, as at every race if, come the end of the championship we will have won, then no one will be able to say it was down to mistakes from the others, but because we always did the maximum,” Alonso told the reporters after the race.

“We will already have some updates in Abu Dhabi: let’s hope we can make a step forward because it will be important to start making up the points gap there already. There are 75 points up for grabs which is a lot. I am still optimistic even if we are all aware that we have to improve our performance, especially on Saturday. I don’t know if this was my best performance of the season, as it’s always difficult to make that sort of call. I am particularly keen on the one in Valencia or at Monza, but this one is definitely up there: I pushed from start to finish, maybe taking some more risks in overtaking compared to previous races. Today, after the start, I tried to immediately attack the McLarens getting into their slipstream,” added Alonso.

Talking about Indian GP he said, They were fighting among themselves and maybe they forgot about me and I managed to get past at least one of them. Then I also managed to overtake Button just a few laps later, but the time lost in those few laps allowed the two Red Bulls to pull out a bit of a gap. In the second stint, I made the most of Webber’s problems with the KERS to overtake him: yet again we have seen that anything can happen and that the races are always long and difficult.”

The race has of sorts thrown Kimi Raikonnen of Lotus out of the title race and it will now be a two way battle between Vettel and Alonso in the remaining three races of the season. Raikonnen finished seventh in the race.

Vettel of Red Bull now has 240 points, while Alonso is on 227, followed by Kimi Raikonnen 173.

The result will has seen Red Bull take a huge lead over Ferrari in the constructer’s table. Red Bull with 407 now have move 91 points clear of the Italian outfit.

By Indian Sports News Network