''Sooner or later we'll close up the gap''McLaren's
Fernando Alonso believes that he now has the speed to close the gap on current world championship leader Lewis Hamilton.
Double World Champion Alonso finished second to Hamilton's third in Sunday's British Grand
Prix, cutting the gap between them to 12 points in the driver's standings.
The Spaniard has taken some time to settle in at McLaren after his winter switch from Renault but he now believes it is just a matter of time until he catches his rookie teammate.
"Sooner or later we'll close up the gap," Alonso said. "Since Canada I have been faster than him. At Indianapolis I couldn't overtake him, and at Magny-Cours I had that gearbox problem. Here we had a normal race and I finished over 30 seconds in front of him," Alonso said.
"There are favourable races coming up now, like Germany and Hungary and the target is to finish ahead of Hamilton and reduce the gap. I must be on the podium always one step higher than him. It's good that the championship leader has more difficulties on track, and especially here in England and after starting from pole," he surmised.
Ferrari's Finnish driver
Kimi Raikkonen outpaced both Hamilton and Alonso at Silverstone, claiming his second consecutive victory after winning at Magny-Cours a week previously.
But Ferrari's strong recent form is not an indication of a power shift away from constructor's championship leaders McLaren, at least according to the English team's CEO Martin Whitmarsh.
"Ferrari are a strong team and so are we," he said. "Obviously I believe we are going to improve the car. We are in a great points position, despite what has happened here and last weekend. We have to make sure we build upon that and fight for this championship."
"We have got to lift our game. We have a test starting on Tuesday and we have got a range of upgrades on the car. Ferrari won't stand still either, but at the moment the circuits will vary the competitive performances of each of the teams, and we will see it swing backwards and forwards," Whitmarsh expected.
"It is a few tenths of a second either way and there is a clear and obvious sense at the moment that we are going to have a competition that is going to go through to the end of the season. That is great for F1. We never thought it was going to be easy," he concluded.
Source AFP
