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Vettel and Red Bull deserve title - Ferrari

Stefano Domenicali: "It is almost impossible to win the title" © Sutton Images

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Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali believes Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull deserve to win this year's title, admitting it is "almost impossible" for Fernando Alonso to fight back now.

Alonso fell 77 points adrift of Vettel in the standings after struggling to a sixth place finish at the Korean Grand Prix as the Red Bull driver stormed to a fourth consecutive victory. Domenicali said Alonso's only hope is for Vettel to experience some of the bad luck his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber has in recent races, but even then admitted Ferrari is too far off the pace.

"Maybe next Sunday the situation will be better and maybe the situation that happened to poor Mark [Webber] will happen, sporting wise, to the car of Vettel," he said. "Then we would get closer, but we need to be realistic and we know that it is almost impossible to win the title like that.

"So congratulations to him and to what they are doing because at the end of the day, if they are there then they deserve that. It's also an extra push and motivation to try to achieve the level of performance they are able to achieve."

Domenicali admitted that in Korea Vettel and Lotus were a class above.

"It was not an easy weekend for us. We saw some sign of it already on Friday, that it was not a weekend where we were really going to be competitive in terms of pace in qualifying. Unfortunately that was really quite a painful Sunday, because we were always in traffic and not able to overtake - basically we were on the same pace as the Sauber with our engine and with the Mercedes. Unfortunately today Vettel and the Lotuses were too strong; that was a fact."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.