*** GRUB ***
Briatore Not Getting Carried Away
By Michele Lostia Sunday, 24 July 2005 16:11
Renault boss Flavio Briatore is still refusing to believe that Fernando Alonso has the World Championship won now, following his crucial victory in the German Grand Prix.
Alonso has extended his lead in the title chase to 36 points over Kimi Raikkonen, who retired from the lead at Hockenheim with an hydraulics failure. And, with only seven races to go, it means the Championship fight is all but over.
But Briatore is remaining cautious about the rest of the season – although is well aware that his team can now take it easy to ensure they do not throw away their advantage.
When asked on Italian television whether he believed Alonso had the title wrapped up, Briatore said: "No, I think we shouldn't think of that right now.
"We've done a great race, we've been good, we have a car that gets to the end and we put the others under pressure, because to make up the ground the others must go on the limit all the times."
Briatore acknowledged that Renault do not need to win any more races to be crowned champions – and that the pressure was now on McLaren to pull something out of the bag after their recent run of reliability problems.
"Well, races need to be finished," added Briatore. "We have to control races while it's them who need to win them. So we had our strategy and we've won six races before this one, so it's them having to win, not us.
"We need to control and then we go on circuits like Budapest, which can certainly be advantageous to us but the Championship is still long: every Sunday we really need to try to bring some points home and Fisichella today helped us in the Constructors. We are doing well, according to what we predicted." |
