Alonso takes stock: “We have to work and talk less”

This year’s Formula 1 season concludes in Brazil this weekend — a season that for Fernando Alonso, in particular, has been a kind of penance.

With the Spaniard at the helm, Ferrari began the year believing it would be fighting for the title right to the end, but has finished it crossing its fingers that Lotus doesn’t relegate it to fourth place in the constructors’ championship. In personal terms, Alonso has also had a rough time of it in the last three weeks as a result of the back and head pain he sustained after taking high-speed evasive action at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Taking stock of 2013 in São Paulo this week, Alonso echoed comments he had made at the end of the last three seasons, but this time less focused on the superiority of now four-times champion Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull and more on the weakness of his Ferrari. “I am happy to have had a good season,” he noted. “This is the second place of which I am proudest. The last race of 2012 left a bittersweet taste as we could have won, but this time we have the seventh- or eighth-best car on the grid and I see where [teammate] Felipe [Massa] is, how many points he has [106 compared with his 227].”

And next year? “It’s useless to say now, it’s not worth having any hopes when there are so many months to go. Everyone is very optimistic in November; we are always going to have the definitive car, the complete car, and then Red Bull is the one who has it. Until the first tests in January and February we have to work and talk less,” Alonso said.