We've updated our Privacy and Cookies Policy
We've made some important changes to our Privacy and Cookies Policy and we want you to know what this means for you and your data.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso says team must start winning
- Author, Andrew Benson
- Role, Chief F1 writer at the Nurburgring
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso has admitted he needs to start winning races if he is to have any chance of beating Sebastian Vettel to the title.
The Spaniard is 34 points adrift of the Red Bull driver after Vettel won Sunday's German GP with Alonso fourth.
"There is still a long way to go and if you have the package to fight everything is possible," Alonso said.
"To recover you need to win two or three races and at the moment it seems we are not able to do so."
Alonso admitted that Ferrari needed to "improve our situation" at the next race in Hungary on 28 July.
"If we concentrate in our own performance and improve the general weekend performance we can start to think good in terms of the championship," he said.
"We've got three weeks until Hungary. They [the team] have got to do something, they've got to do it immediately."
Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber said that the drivers' championship was "getting away from everybody".
Alonso climbed up from eighth on the grid to finish fourth at the Nurburgring, just four seconds behind Vettel, but he said that was down to the fact Ferrari had chosen a different strategy from the leading runners rather than outright speed.
"We started eighth and we finished four seconds behind the leaders, we did a good race from the position but obviously not good enough," he said.
"It was very good the strategy. It gave us the possibility to fight for the podium.
"We were not quick enough today. We didn't have the pace and even with that we fight for the podium and were very close to the leading group.
"If I start fifth and we do soft-hard-hard-hard [tyre compounds] as the main competitors [did], I don't think I finish four seconds behind them because we are slower than them and they will pull away so were fighting with them thanks to the strategy."
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said of winning the title: "It is do-able, for sure, 100%. Everything changes so quickly; everything is still possible."
And Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said he believed the possibility of winning the title was still "on" for Alonso.