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No room for error from Ferrari - Alonso

Fernando Alonso lost another seven points to Sebastian Vettel in Canada © Sutton Images

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Fernando Alonso says Ferrari has no room for error if it wants to close the gap to Sebastian Vettel in the drivers' championship.

Vettel holds a 36-point lead over Alonso after seven races following his victory in Canada, meaning he will definitely leave Silverstone still in the championship lead regardless of the result. Alonso admits that the gap can't be allowed to grow much bigger, but says he takes heart from Vettel's ability to turn around a similar deficit last season.

"All races are important from now on, especially in the position we are in," Alonso said. "Being 36 points behind the leader we don't have much more room to make mistakes or to lose many more points. But on the other side we need to remain calm, we need to do our job, do the maximum we can every weekend. If we can win the race or finish in front of Sebastian it will be great and if we cannot do it we will try to lose the minimum points.

"Last year after Monza I think I had an advantage of around 40 points on Sebastian and that was not enough. That was Monza time, so being at the eighth place of the championship and being 36 points behind is not the ideal position but it's not the end of the world."

Alonso said Ferrari would have to improve if it wants to close the gap to Vettel because Red Bull has been getting stronger as the season goes on.

"Sebastian is doing a fantastic job, all the races he has been nearly perfect with no bad races; always performing well in qualifying and doing very good races. Obviously I had two unlucky situations - one in Malaysia, one in Bahrain - Kimi was leading the championship or very close until he had two unlucky situations - one in Monaco and Canada was a bit of a mixed race for him - so we need to keep fighting.

"We need to keep pushing and we need to recover now these bad races that we've had. Red Bull is performing really well, it's improving compared to the first part of the championship so we really need to raise our game if we want to catch Sebastian because he's doing a fantastic job."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.