{"id":4420,"date":"2010-04-14T15:24:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T19:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=4420"},"modified":"2010-04-14T15:24:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T19:24:43","slug":"schumacher-still-serious-competitor-for-2010-title-alonso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/schumacher-still-serious-competitor-for-2010-title-alonso\/","title":{"rendered":"Schumacher still ‘serious competitor’ for 2010 title – Alonso"},"content":{"rendered":"
Fernando Alonso on Wednesday said he expects Michael Schumacher to be back up to full speed before long.<\/span><\/h5>\n

<\/p>\n

With the seven time world champion outpaced so far by his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg and 26 points behind the 24-year-old, some have written off Schumacher’s ability to impress on his return to the sport.<\/p>\n

But Alonso, who now drives for Ferrari, having beaten the 41-year-old to the last two championships of his original career in 2005 and 2006, is sure the German is still as competitive as before.<\/p>\n

“He is still the Michael Schumacher that we know,” the Spaniard told Germany’s Sport Bild magazine, published on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“I respect him in the same way I did three years ago and am sure that he will show his true qualities when the car is better,” Alonso, 28, added.<\/p>\n

“I really believe Michael will be a serious competitor for the title this year,” he insisted.<\/p>\n

But Alonso also thinks Schumacher’s records, including 91 wins and seven titles, are safe.<\/p>\n

“Because the rules are now so tight, there will be no one who is far superior to the others, as Ferrari was in the past,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If you ask me, Michael’s records are safe.”<\/p>\n

Alonso also said he feels more comfortable at Ferrari than ever before in formula one, predicting that the Maranello based team will be his last.<\/p>\n

“It is the atmosphere in the team,” said Alonso, who since 2001 has also driven for Minardi and Renault.\u00a0 “(At Ferrari it’s) like you’re among friends.<\/p>\n

“When they say ‘goodbye’, it will be time to finish my formula one career,” said Alonso.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF|GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fernando Alonso on Wednesday said he expects Michael Schumacher to be back up to full speed before long.<\/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":[5262,130,149,5261,5340,34,92],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420"}],"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=4420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4421,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420\/revisions\/4421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}