• Belgian Grand Prix

Alonso dismisses favourite tag

Fernando Alonso: "We have a points advantage but we have a performance disadvantage" © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Belgian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Fernando Alonso insists that he is not the favourite to win the drivers' championship despite holding a 40 point lead in the standings.

In a season when there has been seven different winners, Alonso is the only driver to have won three grands prix. Despite holding an advantage equivalent to a race win and a third place, Alonso says he's only been singled out as the favourite due to the recent lack of races and that the reality is Ferrari has the slowest car of the top four teams.

"No, I didn't change (my opinion)," Alonso said. "I think the main thing is in the summer, when you stop for four or five weeks and you see the points you need to talk about Formula One for some days and you see in the classification there's a good advantage for us.

"As we've seen in the first part two or three bad races can make you lose everything, and in terms of performance I think out of the guys that are at the front we are clearly the slowest. We have a points advantage but we have a performance disadvantage so I don't think we are any favourite."

When asked where that really meant Ferrari is in terms of competitiveness compared to the other teams, Alonso said the gap to pole position in Hungary was a good indicator, leaving the team with almost a second to make up by the time the season reaches Singapore.

"It's difficult to know because race-by-race we keep changing the performance and the distance to pole position. The last race - which is the nearest comparison - we were eight tenths from pole position. So this is a little bit too much and we need to improve our situation.

"We'll see how much it is here and in Monza because they are two strange circuits in terms of characteristics of the cars because they run with very low downforce compared to the rest of the circuits, so anything can happen in this next two grands prix and we need to score some good points. Maybe the next real reference we will have in Singapore or Japan and at that point we must close this eight tenths; we need to be in position to fight with them."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.