Fernando Alonso considers Lewis Hamilton his main rival for the 2012 World Championship – and not just because the McLaren man is currently second in the standings.
Alonso made the point that if Ferrari has to choose which driver to try to beat on strategy, it would be Hamilton.
“Everybody is strong at the moment, and everybody is a contender,” said the Spaniard. “So there are still five or six drivers who can fight for the title. We always said from February that Lewis is the one I respect more, because I know what he can do with good cars and bad cars, and he is second.
“For sure any part of the race we cannot cover in terms of strategy five drivers, because it’s impossible to cover [all of them], sometimes one does a pit stop, sometimes two laps later another one, in that case we need to cover which is the closest one.
“At the moment it’s Lewis, and after three races that McLaren won, again he’s the favourite for this one. We have to stop hopefully this dominant position. We’re bringing some new parts on the car and we’re optimistic that we can do well here and in the next two or three Grands Prix.”
As for Ferrari’s prospects for Singapore, Alonso said: “We need to wait to see how tomorrow’s performance is, our aim is to fight for the pole and fight for the win in this race.
“We’ve been competitive in Monaco, we’ve been competitive in Canada, which is some kind of street circuit, so we will try to do our best here again. We know important pole position is, so Saturday is an important day.”
Meanwhile when asked about a second driver for 2013, Alonso gave his endorsement to Felipe Massa.
“We need to have a driver that respects Ferrari, that respects the tradition of this team, and respects that here we work for the team, for the red cars. This is the first priority. Second I’ve been working with Felipe for three years now, we have a very good relationship, and if the team decides to change Felipe, someone that arrives has to be better than Felipe.
“And all the names, and all the things written, I don’t know if they’re written with the head or with the heart, because all the names that you listen, I don’t know if you minimum compare what Felipe did in F1, and what these little names did in F1.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Sounds like Flavio-speak to me.
I think it is very desent of Alonso to defend Massa. I think the jurnoes are whipping up a story. Just think back to when Massa was injuried Badoer and Fisicella could not fill his shoes. And no I do not belive that he has lost the ability to drive fast but with Alonso in the team and Ferraris hail to Alonso it must be very difficult to be on the line and what have you. I think he might feel a little lost and does he have the same car? Just let him in peace it should be the Ferrari managment letting him feel the pressure and not reporters. They should report not invent stories. I love when Vettel was hailed as the youngest double champion he said look at Schumacher he is the youngest 7 times champion.
He’s a clever guy Fernando. His comments about Lewis do two things; 1.) They put pressure on Lewis to win, suggesting that it’s something he can only do in a ‘good car’ and 2.) it places pressure on McLaren to beat Ferrari on strategy, which in turn may take the Woking teams eye off other teams, like Red Bull, which would be an error.
In the car Fernando is as fast as Hamilton or Vettel, out of the car he’s got the political acumen that leaves those two for dead and perhaps only JB is a match in that department. That’s why, although I didn’t used to like the guy, I have oodles of respect for what he’s done.
Well said pollerunner, it gets really tiresome when the journos keep asking the drivers over and over again about transfers when they know quite well that the drivers won’t/can’t answer them. This especially in the Thursday driver conferences.
I think Massa’s problem is his immediate team, no doubt Rob Smedley is a very competent engineer but somehow the pairing isn’t working anymore. I think Ferrari should’ve tried a different chief engineer this year just to see. But as Alonso says, they have deep-rooted traditions and they stick to those traditions win or lose.
Hi Adam, I love the way you give us insight in the world of formula-1 but I hate the way reportes invent stories about driver transferes etc. Just to sell stories. Just take the way drivers rift are reportet and then the drivers are not seeing things the same way… I think reporters should return to report fact and history and not hearsay and speculations. I know it is difficult for reportes to stand out when on the internet you can read the same history on all the sites. I used to visit 3-4 different web sites to read their view. But now they are all the same based on the teams news bulletins. So the internet is both a blessing and a bit of the problem. Just my ramblings…