• German Grand Prix

I must start beating Vettel - Alonso

Fernando Alonso's strategy of starting on the medium tyre saw him gain four places from his grid position in the race © Associated Press

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• Race:
• German Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Fernando Alonso says he has to beat Sebastian Vettel at the Hungarian Grand Prix after losing ground to the championship leader in Germany.

Vettel's first victory on home soil saw him extend his advantage to 34 points with Alonso finishing in fourth place. Having seen the gap grow to more than one race victory again, Alonso said Ferrari would have to beat Vettel in the next race if it wants to harbour realistic hopes of winning the drivers' championship.

"Our main goal every weekend is to finish in front of Sebastian and today that was not the case so we cannot be happy," Alonso said. "It's true that in Silverstone we recovered 15 points, here we lost 13 so we more or less come back to the same position. We want to go in to the August break with a little bit less of a gap so in Hungary we really must finish in front of him. Not an easy target but we need to close this gap immediately."

However, Alonso was satisfied that Ferrari had got the best result it possibly could on Sunday as he finished fourth.

"I think it was more or less the maximum. The strategy worked fine, we started eighth and we finished in the group of the leaders, four seconds behind Vettel. So it was more or less a good pace in the race for us but not good enough to overtake them.

"I think it was a little bit surprising the softs at the beginning, we thought after four or five laps they would be very slow and everyone would pit but they pitted very late - even Grosjean was lap 12 - so that was a little bit of a surprise for us and we maybe didn't maximise the advantage."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.