Formula One / David Croft / 17 October 2008 / Leave a comment

After tipping Fernando Alonso for last week's Japanese Grand Prix, David Croft talks to the Spaniard about his comments regarding Lewis Hamilton's title hopes and looks ahead to this weekend's race in China.

Every Thursday before a Grand Prix, four drivers are selected to face the press for the official FIA conference. Sometimes this half hour can be fairly run of the mill, sometimes they're about as unmissable as a new James Bond movie. This week, here in Shanghai, gathered like a bunch of naughty schoolboys sat Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Robert Kubica and Lewis Hamilton.

Kubica started the snowball rolling in Japan when he was critical of the way Lewis Hamilton was driving. Raikkonen was directly involved and impeded when the British driver locked up at the first turn in Fuji. Alonso has hardly been quick to defend Lewis in any of his 33 Grand Prix so far.

It had the makings of a very tricky Q&A for Lewis who I thought handled the situation as well as could be expected amongst the giggles, sniggers and finger pointing. In fact when push came to shove and his rivals were asked for a comment on Lewis' perceived aggressive style, all declined to give one.

A day later and the so called showdown in the drivers briefing failed to materialise as well. Lewis left after ten minutes and the remaining members of the Grand Prix Drivers Association concerned themselves with more important matters than whether they thought the championship leader had got a bit too big for his boots.

Fernando Alonso meanwhile has been busy clarifying some of his comments in the lead up to the race. The former team-mate of Lewis had implied that he was more than happy to help Felipe Massa win the title rather than see Lewis become champion. A little sour even when you take the events of last season into account. But the winner of the last two Grand Prix cleared up matters by adding here that what he meant was that if the improved performance of his Renault team ensured that he was ahead of Lewis then he'd be happy for himself and also aware that by doing so he'd be helping the Brazilian's title challenge.

When talking to me on Thursday, Alonso added that if he was ahead he wouldn't be prepared to let anyone past, even if it was Felipe. Alonso as ever is racing for himself and hopefully rewarding those of you who read last week's column from Japan where I did mention that he was an outstanding outside bet for the race.

On a track where he won in 2006, Alonso remains a good prospect here in Shanghai and Betfair punters can back him at [9.4 ] or [2.64] for the podium. He has no pressure to deal with and is racing for fun, enjoying every minute of the weekend. Personally, I think it's only good for the sport to see him return to form.

As for his off-track comments and antics, I'm told that he does like to wind Lewis up from time to time, especially during the driver's parade before the start of the race, but often his comments are very tongue in cheek. I don't think that Lewis is on his Christmas card list and the two will never be best of buddies - one thing he doesn't handle well is being beaten by his team-mate and Lewis did that far too often last season for comfort - but Alonsos problem is as much with McLaren as it with the man in the yellow helmet.

So can the man win here this weekend? Of course he can and by setting the fastest times in both practice sessions he got his weekend off to a flying start. The last time, by the way, that Lewis did that was in Germany where he was exceptional. Of course there's just a touch more pressure on his shoulders in China and what will be fascinating to see is whether he can handle the expectation and not revert back to the mistakes of Japan. The red mist can descend at any time.