Championship still open: Alonso

Ferrari driver confident of team’s ability to dominate.

Chinese Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso said it was still premature to pick a favourite for the title, but the driver was confident Ferrari’s strong pace will put him in the mix, according to ESPNf1.

The Spaniard is currently third in the drivers’ championship behind Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. All three have won a race this year.

Alonso said it is still unclear who has the fastest car among the frontrunners and believes luck will also play a role in deciding the title.

“I don’t see anyone having a clear advantage,” said Alonso. “Maybe Red Bull were very dominant in Australia in all free practices; in qualifying and the race they were suffering a little bit of degradation but definitely very fast. In Malaysia, they were maybe a little bit more in the groove but here they were similar to the others so let’s wait and see what the updates of every car bring to the pace, and we will see how luck plays.”

No Webber conspiracy: Horner

Meanwhile, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner angrily dismissed talk of a conspiracy against Mark Webber as ‘complete rubbish’ after the Australian’s dismal weekend in Shanghai.

The Australian was thrown out of qualifying in Shanghai when a technical error left him with not enough fuel before his afternoon on race day came to an abrupt end when a wheel fell off on lap 16.

“That is complete rubbish,” said Horner. “Anybody that thinks there is a conspiracy here against one, or either driver doesn’t know what they are looking at. Webber knows exactly what happened.”

Ecclestone dismisses Bahrain concerns

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has dismissed concerns over this week’s Bahrain Grand Prix after pro-democracy protests escalated and a militant group blew up a car in the capital Manama.

“There’s no reason why the race shouldn’t be a success,” he said.

A radical youth February 14 Movement claimed responsibility for the blast on Twitter, saying it was aimed at disrupting ‘activity in Manama’s financial centre in opposition to holding the Formula One race’.

Authorities in the resource-rich Gulf kingdom have promised ‘appropriate security measures’ for the race.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2013.