• Belgian Grand Prix

Alonso rues Red Bull pace

Fernando Alonso started eighth but lost a podium place to Jenson Button with two laps remaining © Getty Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• Report:
• Vettel extends championship lead after Spa win
  

• Race:
• Belgian Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Fernando Alonso said that Red Bull was just too quick for Ferrari despite the tyre degradation issues which troubled the championship leaders in the Belgian Grand Prix.

Red Bull had asked to be allowed to make changes to its tyre camber after suffering blistering to the soft compound during qualifying, but that request was rejected and it had to take a conservative approach to pit stops during the race. Having finished fourth, Alonso said it didn't matter if Red Bull couldn't run the optimal strategy when it had such a speed advantage with the RB7.

"Vettel stopped on lap five, we stopped on lap eight - or something like that - because we had to protect from people behind going quickly like Button and Webber," Alonso said. "[But] in the second stint after six or seven laps, with the safety car, Vettel pitted again so we can do much more laps than they can do, but we are slower from the beginning to the end of the stint because they had a pace advantage of one second or something like that today, in the final part of the race maybe more, maybe 1.5 seconds. So when you have a car that is 1.5 seconds than the rest it's easy for you to stop one lap earlier or one lap later."

When asked what Vettel's victory meant for his championship chances, Alonso said the situation remained the same; to attempt to win every race.

"Nothing's changed. I think compared to the gap we had yesterday obviously it's more difficult every race we have 25 points less available, one race less and the gap increases even more because they keep winning. So we've said that for the last four or five grands prix until mathematically it's impossible we will have hope and we will try to do our best and keep fighting.

"But we are very realistic, knowing that the championship chances are not in our hands. They need to make big, big mistakes and have big problems if we want to win the championship, so we'll try to enjoy every Sunday, every race, and try to do our best."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.