{"id":14744,"date":"2011-12-30T07:05:36","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T12:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=14744"},"modified":"2011-12-30T07:05:36","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T12:05:36","slug":"alonso-says-mercedes-among-favourites-for-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/alonso-says-mercedes-among-favourites-for-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Alonso says Mercedes among favourites for 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso has named Mercedes as a dark horse for the 2012 season.<\/p>\n<p>Together at the German marque&#8217;s new works team since 2010, Michael Schumacher&#8217;s return to F1 has been the subject of much criticism while it has been said teammate Nico Rosberg could go his entire career without a win.<\/p>\n<p>But Alonso, the lead driver at Ferrari, insists he does not underestimate the German duo, or the Ross Brawn-led Mercedes team, even though they were soundly beaten by Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In formula one, the car is always the most important (element),&#8221; the Spaniard is quoted by EFE news agency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know that Mercedes didn&#8217;t have a great year but we have to respect them.\u00a0 With a car capable of winning races, Rosberg and Michael are among the favourites,&#8221; said Alonso.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, when contemplating the field of 2012, 30-year-old Alonso insists Schumacher &#8211; 43 next month &#8211; remains the reference for his rivals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I say (it&#8217;s) Schumacher, because we all respect a driver who has been champion seven times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has always been very fast and there is nothing left for him to prove,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso has named Mercedes as a dark horse for the 2012 season. Together at the German marque&#8217;s new works team since 2010, Michael Schumacher&#8217;s return to F1 has been the subject of much criticism while it has been said teammate Nico Rosberg could go his entire career without a win. But Alonso, the lead &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,149,93,5340,34,92,4,35],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14745,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744\/revisions\/14745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}