F1: Alonso wins in China

Oct 17 2005 Western Mail

Fernando Alonso capped a 'dream' season by winning the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai to secure the constructors' championship for Renault.

The Spaniard, whose drivers' world title was confirmed last month in Brazil, put the seal on a history-making season by winning an incident-filled race yesterday from pole position.

Two safety car periods shuffled the order and eroded Alonso's hard-earned advantage at the front, but the 24-year-old kept a clear head to win his seventh race of the year, beating rival Kimi Raikkonen into second place.

At the end of campaign which has seen Renault win their first world championships as a team, Alonso was in triumphant mood.

He said, 'All season has been a dream come true but for Renault even more because it is four years since Renault came into Formula One and now we are champions. It was not an easy job to do.

'For the team it has been a fantastic season but we arrived in the last race with two points only on McLaren.

'We pushed the car a little bit to win the constructors' championship. It was not crucial but quite important to the team for motivation for next year.'

Renault have been second best in terms of outright speed for much of the season, but Alonso attributed that to their cautious approach at a key stage in the championship.

But with the gloves off this weekend, he was able to beat Raikkonen in a straight fight and feels yesterday's result could have come sooner.

'For us it was a good season all through the year,' he said. 'We won at the beginning all the races and then we didn't take any risks because the gap was big enough to keep the distance.

'We showed here if we take a few more risks to battle the McLaren, we can do it. It was the easiest race of the year probably.'

Alonso is predicting a classic rivalry between himself and Raikkonen over the next few years, and he believes he will have the upper hand.

He added, 'For the future it will be a good fight because he is very young. We can be in Formula One a very long time.

'I am really happy and confident for next year because the potential is here in the team.'

Raikkonen offered his congratulations to Alonso and Renault, hailing them as worthy winners.

'I would rather win it than lose the championship, but they deserve it this year,' he said. 'Definitely he deserves it and next year I will try to give him a hard time and for sure he will try to do the same for me.'

Behind the scrap for world titles, Jenson Button completed a consistent end to a difficult campaign by scoring points for the 10th race in succession.

However, the BAR-Honda driver claims he would have finished higher than eighth if a mix-up behind the safety car had not cost him, Juan Pablo Montoya and David Coulthard nearly half a minute.

'The race pace wasn't fantastic, but even so we would have been pretty high up,' said Button, who was held behind the safety car while his key rivals made up time on their way into the pits.

'You can't go past the safety car unless he waves you by and by that time everybody who didn't pit on that lap was hammering it round to pits and they got out in front of me. I could have been fourth or fifth. That was race done, I got done really.'