Spa: While Sebastian Vettel silenced any doubters with a dominant win at the Belgian Grand Prix, the race encouraged Fernando Alonso to believe that he can still mount a title challenge with eight races remaining.
Alonso heads to Monza in two weeks' time with fresh optimism after an impressive second-place finish after starting ninth on the grid. It was Alonso at his cavalier best, overtaking established Formula One drivers almost at will, and there was clearly an added zeal in the way he carved his way through the field.
The two-time former champion gave Ferrari a welcome boost following some disappointing races and an internal feud that threatened to disrupt the campaign - until Alonso wisely calmed things down with a public show of support for his team and its president.
Alonso's performance moved him back into second place overall in the title race, and while he trails Red Bull's Vettel by 46 points, the Spaniard insists that the gap can be closed.
If he needs any proof, he need only cast his mind back to last year.
"I was leading with 41 points ahead of Sebastian after the Monza race and I arrived in Texas 15 points behind, so things can change," he said. "Our hopes are to keep improving performance and try to repeat what happened last year the other way around. If you have a competitive car and you win four or five consecutive races, like Sebastian did last year in India, Japan, Singapore, you recover very quickly."
Ferrari's main problem is qualifying speed because Alonso has not been on the front row all season. Yet it is testimony to his driving ability that he has still managed to win two races, although the last of those was the Spanish GP back in May.
"We won two of the five races and we were in a position to fight for the podium all the time. At that point, we were a very few points behind the leader," he said. "Then there were some races in the championship where we went backwards in terms of a step in the car and we lost direction a little bit."
Alonso finished fourth at the German GP and then fifth in Hungary as the mood within Ferrari soured heading into the summer break.
The day after the Hungarian GP, Alonso was asked what he would like as a 32nd birthday present and responded with an acerbic "somebody else's car." That comment appeared loaded with undertone and earned him a public rebuke from Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo.
Alonso resolved the matter last Thursday, defusing what seemed like a ticking bomb by saying it was a misunderstanding, putting it down to poor translations from one language to another. He then praised his president in glowing terms and threw his backing behind the team.
Matter closed
Still, Alonso expects more from his car in order to be truly competitive against Vettel. "I'm doing what I can," he said. "In the pure performance of the car, we are maybe lacking some performance compared to the others."
Lewis Hamilton, who started from pole position for the fourth consecutive race only to finish third, also feels that his Mercedes is still lagging behind in terms of overall consistency.
He entered the race full of confidence after his win in Hungary and many observers tipped the Briton as Vettel's biggest rival for the remainder of the campaign. All that fell rather flat. He finished 28 seconds behind Vettel on Sunday after being overtaken just 31 seconds into the race: a hammer blow for the 2008 champion.
"I felt that we perhaps didn't have as good a package as these two here," Hamilton said. "I think we've done a decent job but obviously these guys have done a slightly better job. Whether or not we can make an adjustment before the next race, we'll wait and see but I think more importantly we'll be back to being very competitive, or more competitive, when we get to Singapore."
Hamilton is now 58 points behind Vettel - a considerable margin given the number of races left. But Vettel is the last person to believe title talk.
"Everybody should know by now that I am a step-by-step kind of guy," the German said. "What I can say is that I feel very comfortable in the car and feel that we are moving in the right direction."
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