Formula One: Red hot

Rugby reporter

Sunday 2 September 2012

The cameras will all be pointing at Michael Schumacher, as the seven-times world champion starts the 300th grand prix of his career in Belgium today.

Many think the drivers' championship is Fernando Alonso's to lose Photograph: Getty

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Alasdair Reid

The bookies will be watching Kimi Raikkonen, well aware that some serious money has been wagered on the Finn who won the title in 2007. The eyes of the Brits in the crowd at Spa Francorchamps – regardless of Jenson Button's pole start – will mostly be drawn to Lewis Hamilton, who won in Hungary last month and is still well in the running for this year's drivers' championship.

And that is pretty much how Fernando Alonso wants it. Away from the track, the 31-year-old Spaniard enjoys the attention his life as a F1 driver – and especially a Ferrari driver – inevitably brings, but not since Schumacher was in his prime has the sport known a driver with quite so serious a game face. When it is time to get down to business, nobody does it with more intensity and focus than Alonso.There are those in F1 who consider that Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have more raw speed than Alonso. Vettel has had three pole positions and three fastest laps this season, while Hamilton has also started from the front of the grid three times. But the evidence of the 2012 campaign backs up the assertion that it is Alonso who is the most complete driver. In a fiercely competitive season that saw seven different drivers win the first seven races, Alonso broke the mould at the eighth event, the European GP at Valencia in June, when he became the first to notch a second win He added a third at the German GP the following month, but it has been his consistency in other races that has made the most significant contribution to his 40-point lead over Mark Webber in the drivers' standings.If Alonso cannot win then he will still sweep up as many points as he can. This season has seen him take two second places and a third. By contrast, Webber's only visits to the podium have been on the days he has won. Alonso was clearly the coming man in 2005 when he became F1's youngest champion – a mantle since stolen by Hamilton – but it was hardly a vintage period for the sport. He took his second title in 2006, still driving for Renault, but with his 2007 move to McLaren he became embroiled, albeit as a peripheral character, in the Spygate and Crashgate scandals that cast a shadow across F1 at the time.Those backdrops will add layers of meaning to his achievement should Alonso go on to take the drivers' title this year, for he will have done it in a sport now recognised as being both clean and competitive. And although others may be favoured in Belgium today – Alonso has a surprisingly poor record at the legendary Spa circuit and starts fifth on the grid – there is a growing feeling throughout F1 that the championship is now his to lose and that his status as one of the sport's greatest ever drivers will soon be confirmed.Martin Brundle recently described Alonso's innate feel for a car as "Senna-like". Gary Anderson, the former Jaguar technical director who is now a BBC analyst, added a twist to the comparison when he spoke of Vettel as being an even better front-runner than Senna, but added that he would back Alonso to get the better result in matching machinery.For just as Alonso will labour to get the most he can from a race in terms of points, he will also squeeze every last ounce of performance from a car. He started the season in a Ferrari that was generally reckoned to be 1.5 seconds off the pace, but scored a stunning victory in only the second race of the season, the Malaysian GP.Schumacher famously moulded Ferrari to his liking, but Alonso has been more inclined to fit himself to the needs of the Maranello outfit. Granted, he joined a team who were in far better shape than the one Schumacher signed up with, but they have warmed to his easy-going ways. And they will love him all the more if he can bring the title home.

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Formula One: Red hot

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