Fernando Alonso says his main aim in Singapore is to end McLaren’s run of wins which has now hit three in a row thanks to Lewis Hamilton’s victories in Hungary and Italy, whilst Jenson Button won the Belgium GP before that.
The Spaniard currently leads the drivers’ championship by 37 points to Hamilton and he is keen to protect his lead, though he admits it will be difficult.
“There are many teams that are strong and are still contenders, with maybe five or six drivers that can fight for the title,” Alonso said during a media conference in Singapore.
Though he highlighted Hamilton as his most dangerous rival: “Lewis is second at the moment and since February, we have said that he is the one that probably I respect the most, because we know what he can do in good cars or bad cars.
“In terms of strategy, it is almost impossible to cover five drivers, as they can make pit stops at different times, so in this race, we need to cover whichever driver is closest in the classification, which means Lewis at the moment,” he added.
The double-time world champion is hoping Ferrari’s latest upgrades will help them around Singapore and will starve McLaren of a fourth consecutive win.
“McLaren has won the last two [actually three] races and so they are the favourites here as well,” he continued. “Hopefully we can stop their dominance: we have brought some new parts for the car and are optimistic that we can do well here and at the next two or three Grands Prix.
“We need to see how we perform on Friday, but our aim is to fight for pole and the win in this race. We were competitive in Monaco and Canada, which are similar circuits and so we are optimistic. We know how important is pole position here.”
