Aug.30 (GMM) Scuderia Ferrari’s Icon Driver Fernando Alonso has declared he will have some ground to make up after faults to finish the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, spinning out near the end in the wet conditions while on course to score four points for eighth place. Alonso stays fifth in the race for the 2010 FIA Formula One drivers’ championship, despite his late error, but he is now 41 points behind arch rival, Lewis Hamilton, who took the victory and the maximum 25 points.

It was a hard afternoon for the Spaniard and it all went incorrect on the opening lap, when Rubens Barrichello crashed into him. Although Alonso recovered, and fought his way back up into the top ten, he undid all that hard work when he went off with just 6 laps to go.

"The first of the seven "finals" went badly for me and for two of the other five finalists, while the remaining two got the maximum results: that means we will have to make up the ground lost today somewhere else," Alonso reflected.

“At the start, I immediately made up some places and the signs were that I could have a good race. Then, I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, when Rubens could not control his car under braking and crashed into me. I came straight back to the pits to change the tyres and to check the car was alright, when we fitted intermediate tyres, expecting more persistent and harder rain, but that was not the case.

“Yesterday we were hoping for rain, but when it came it was already too late to be of much use to me; on the contrary it prevented me from getting the chance to overtake the cars which would have had to stop to fit the soft tyres.

“Then I went off the track, when I went over a kerb and that was my race over: a shame even if the points I could have brought home would not have been a lot. It is very disappointing, because this is a bad result, but it does not mean I have given up on my chances of winning the title."