{"id":18133,"date":"2013-04-22T07:04:31","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T11:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=18133"},"modified":"2013-04-22T07:04:31","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T11:04:31","slug":"alonso-would-have-challenged-vettel-barrichello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/alonso-would-have-challenged-vettel-barrichello\/","title":{"rendered":"Alonso would have challenged Vettel &#8211; Barrichello"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso would have fought for victory in Bahrain, according to veteran former driver Rubens Barrichello.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignright\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Fernando-Alonso\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2012-rif-images\/f1-12-drivers\/Fernando-Alonso.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>Before the race began, Mercedes&#8217; Niki Lauda was asked to name the likely winner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fernando Alonso,&#8221; he answered, despite the fact Mercedes&#8217; own Nico Rosberg was starting from pole.\u00a0 &#8220;We have to be realistic,&#8221; the Austrian legend added.<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard&#8217;s charge, however, was thwarted by a failing DRS rear wing flap, which had to be manually closed by Ferrari&#8217;s mechanics during a pitstop.<\/p>\n<p>It then flipped open again, forcing yet another pitstop and ruining his victory chances.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Alonso had not had the problem with the DRS, I&#8217;m sure he would have fought with (Sebastian) Vettel for the victory,&#8221; Barrichello, in Bahrain as a co-commentator for Brazilian television Globo, said.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the weekend, the Brazilian had watched the action from the middle of the Sakhir layout, and named the Ferrari as among the very best cars in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a wealth of data that leads me to say that Alonso would have fought with Vettel,&#8221; the 40-year-old insisted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Ferrari is a great car, even with the DRS open, when Alonso lost just a second per lap,&#8221; added Barrichello.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso would have fought for victory in Bahrain, according to veteran former driver Rubens Barrichello. Before the race began, Mercedes&#8217; Niki Lauda was asked to name the likely winner. &#8220;Fernando Alonso,&#8221; he answered, despite the fact Mercedes&#8217; own Nico Rosberg was starting from pole.\u00a0 &#8220;We have to be realistic,&#8221; the Austrian legend added. The &#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":[864,3001,5262,149,93,5340,598,352,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133"}],"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=18133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18134,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133\/revisions\/18134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}