Despite Lewis Hamilton's DNF (did not finish) the Englishman's first of the season, which allowed him to close to within four points, thereby taking the title fight down to the wire, Fernando Alonso is not entirely optimistic.

"I think it will be very difficult in the championship because I know that it will not be easy to take four points off Lewis," the Spaniard said yesterday, following a dramatic Chinese GP.

"This eight points is a help for sure," he admitted. "Hopefully I can do a good race but for the championship, I still need something really dramatic if I want to win. With a normal race, it will be impossible."

The World Champion then referred to comments he had made on Saturday to the Spanish media, comments which will only add to the growing rift with his current employer.

"Yesterday I did not say anything that is not true," he said. "The team has been saying many bad things about me, from Spa onwards especially, so the relationship didn't change too much."

Referring directly to team boss Ron Dennis, the Spaniard added: "He was the first one to say that he was not speaking with me and things like that. From that point, I understood that the championship was not going to be easy for me."

As for his teammate's retirement form yesterday's race, Alonso could allow the opportunity of another sly dig to pass by.

"I didn't know if he was retiring or not," he said. "At the Nurburgring I saw on the big screen that he was in the gravel and then he was on the track again with the recovery car, so I didn't know if it was a definite retirement or not."