In Singapore she won again the Red Bull, the second personal success of the two-time reigning champion Vettel, who is now back as Alonso's main pursuer. Enemy number 1 until yesterday, Lewis Hamilton, he was comfortably leading the Grand Prix when a hydraulic failure brought his McLaren to a halt. Behind Vettel then, third, Button with the second McLaren. So Alonso, who is now flying to Japan and Korea with a 29-point lead: not decisive (there are still 6 races to go) but if the trend of the division of victories and points remains this, there is really much to hope for in Maranello.
After 14 of the 20 scheduled Grands Prix, In fact, Alonso leads the championship standings with 194 points: something less than an average third place per race; much worse than the averages of the recent championships and therefore a guarantee of a 'short' ranking which obviously favors those with less firepower but can count on a regularity, on a greater lucidity than the others. It is precisely the case of Fernando Alonso: even in Singapore, a race of pitfalls and an almost guaranteed Safety Car, he managed to stay away from the troubles that befell many of his rivals. The technical consistency of the F2012 does the rest: always in the points so far, except in the unfortunate Belgium with the ramming suffered by Grosjean's Lotus at the start, the Asturian will now squeeze the team for one last technical development with which to go more on the attack in the 6 remaining GPs. Not that there weren't any updates in Singapore; the problem is that not all of them worked. Now is the time to focus and perfect them, in view of the long non-European trip (4 races in Asia and two in America) before the final finish on November 25th.
This leap of faith is necessary and inevitable, if you don't always want to hope for luck (better: for the misfortunes of others) to aim for the title. Alonso knows it and the Maranello team knows it too. But the result is closer than a race and Fernando's 'real' opponents remain Vettel, now at 29 points and with a RedBull that seems to be growing; Raikkonen constant at 45 points behind even with a Lotus which is also regular but incapable of high notes; and the aforementioned Hamilton, who drives a McLaren super but is 52 lengths off today. Which are many: even by winning all 6 remaining GPs (and it is statistically almost impossible, especially in a fragmented championship like this), Hamilton should hope for an Alonso who is never unable to do better than 3rd place.
