Fernando Alonso’s last hope to rescue his flagging championship charge in 2012 is a spate of technical problems for Red Bull.<\/p>\n
That is the view of F1 great Niki Lauda, who told Germany’s Sport1: “Alonso cannot stop Vettel, unless Vettel suddenly gets technical problems.<\/p>\n
“But with just his driving skills, Alonso can’t stop him now, because Red Bull’s progress has been too good.”<\/p>\n
Another weapon deployed by Spaniard Alonso in recent days, however, has been the ‘psychological game’.<\/p>\n
When he said recently his title fight is actually not with Vettel but with Red Bull designer Adrian Newey, many interpreted that as an attack on his German rival.<\/p>\n
But Lauda insisted: “Every car needs a good driver.\u00a0 What good is Newey if the driver can’t drive it?”<\/p>\n
Indeed, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said criticism is just part of the game, particularly in light of Vettel’s meteoric success over the past few years.<\/p>\n
“It is uncomfortable the success that Sebastian has had, and uncomfortable for some the success that Red Bull has had.\u00a0 That’s not our fault,” he insisted.<\/p>\n
But Alonso has also been fending off an attack, after the Italian newspaper La Stampa claimed the Spaniard had a heated row with Ferrari’s technical boss Pat Fry in India.<\/p>\n
“Normally, when you’re in the fight for the title, it is the press of other countries that tries to destabilise you,” Alonso told Spanish reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“This time the destabilisation has come from Italy.”<\/p>\n
Vettel, however, said he has no intention of entering the fray.\u00a0 “I have no desire for psychological games,” he is quoted by Bild newspaper.<\/p>\n
“We should concentrate on the driving instead.”<\/p>\n
And, anyway, he said he respects Alonso.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes things are dragged out of context,” Vettel insisted, “but the respect is there and that’s what counts.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fernando Alonso’s last hope to rescue his flagging championship charge in 2012 is a spate of technical problems for Red Bull. That is the view of F1 great Niki Lauda, who told Germany’s Sport1: “Alonso cannot stop Vettel, unless Vettel suddenly gets technical problems. “But with just his driving skills, Alonso can’t stop him now, …<\/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":[128,5262,149,93,5340,598,129,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16951"}],"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=16951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16952,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16951\/revisions\/16952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}