Rosberg may tighten up in title race - Alonso

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Fernando Alonso says Nico Rosberg could tighten up if he retains his advantage in the drivers' championship late in the season.

Rosberg has impressed so far this year with four victories from the opening five races, with his run only ended due to a collision with team-mate Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap of the Spanish Grand Prix. That form has left the German with a 39-point advantage over Kimi Raikkonen, while Hamilton is four points further back.

Alonso has been impressed with the way Rosberg has approached this season so far and does not expect a hangover from the Barcelona incident but says it can be difficult when drivers are going for their first championship and holding an advantage in the standings.

“He drove fantastically these first races of the championship and he deserved the victory in many of them,” Alonso said. “In Barcelona I think it was a very unique situation what happened. With Nico losing the performance from the MGU-K deployment in the middle of a corner, you commit to one side because you only have one move to do so you commit to the right.

“Lewis arrived so fast with all the deployment, he committed to the right because it was the only way so they found themselves with no opportunity to improve that situation anymore. So it’s just an unlucky situation for both of them but I think they will reset everything here.

“Nico has a good advantage in terms of points but the championship is long and we saw Lewis stopping with some reliability problems sometimes so it can happen to Nico as well and equal the championship quite quickly for Lewis.

“Definitely it is a good opportunity for Nico and sometimes you feel it is your only opportunity for the championship. It happened to Mark [Webber] as well in 2010, it’s some kind of one-off and sometimes it’s difficult to execute at the end when the last races are coming. But so far I think he’s enjoying a good advantage, good performance, he’s in good form, so he’s enjoying it.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.