Alonso is Kovalainen’s favorite for the title in 2012

After an unpredictable start to the season during which 6 different drivers won the same number of races, Fernando Alonso leads the world championship, a prediction that few people would have dared to make before the season started. “Drivers are more important this year. When everything is so tight, the drivers make the difference,” explains Jaime Alguersuari in his column for BBC Sport. “That’s why you see Fernando Alonso leading the championship. His car was a second and a half slower than the best in Australia and a second slower in Malaysia and China. He has never been on pole position and he is leading the championship after six races! He doesn’t have the best car, but he has shown that at the moment, he is the best driver on the track.”

But the former Toro Rosso driver is not the only one to think this about the Ferrari driver. After stormy beginnings at McLaren and an exacerbated rivalry, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton seem to have turned a page in their history and never miss an opportunity to affirm their mutual respect. After the Spaniard’s podium in Monaco, the 2008 world champion admits he expected nothing less from him: “He’s a double world champion and probably the best driver currently.”

From then on, despite a challenging start to the championship due to a F2012 considered a failure, Fernando Alonso’s leading position in the driver’s championship is no longer really a surprise, and the competition, starting with Christian Horner, is wary of it: “Fernando is driving very well and he will be a key factor throughout this championship, that’s for sure!”

In an interview given to the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat, Heikki Kovalainen does not hide that he makes the double world champion Spaniard his favorite for the title: « Yes, he will win the championship this year. No matter if the circumstances or weather conditions are special, there is always a common variable: Alonso is always at the forefront. » A prediction that reinforces the positive comments the Finn made about the Spaniard when the casinoenligne.uk.com correspondent in Barcelona asked him who had been his best teammate: « He wasn’t really a teammate since I was the third driver, but Fernando Alonso was very good, I learned a lot from him. He is able to extract the best from the car, and even if the car is not perfect, he will do his maximum. »

Mika Salo gives the same prediction on the Finnish television channel MTV3 and believes that Massa is an asset for the Spaniard: « Their car has improved significantly and now even Massa manages to drive it well. The Red Bull guys are quite close to Fernando in the championship, but they are taking points from each other while Alonso has a teammate who won’t take points from him in the same way. »