Alonso confident Renault won't falter

Fernando Alonso claims Renault have learnt their lesson from 2004 and will not allow a late-season slide to shatter his world championship dream.

Last season Renault were locked in a tight battle with BAR for second place in the constructors’ championship only to fall away badly in the final few races of the season.

With Alonso and his team under pressure from Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren in their respective championships, a repeat performance this year could be disastrous.

But Alonso has complete faith in Renault to maintain their pace all the way to the last race in Shanghai in October.

He said: “I am not worried about it all – but like with many things, we have to wait and see what happens.

“We know that we did not have fantastic performance in the last part of 2004, but I think we have learned the lesson and know the reasons.

“I know that the team is well prepared and working very hard on all the developments. We were very competitive at the last two races, and I believe we can do the job.”

The Spaniard admits he would find championship defeat difficult to take after leading the standings for half the season.

He has a 26-point advantage over Raikkonen and is keeping his fingers crossed that bad luck will not deprive him at this late stage.

He added: “Mathematically, I know I will lead the championship even after the next two races, so to lose the position at the end of the year after leading for a long time would be difficult.

“But when you think back to the start of the year, nobody thought we would be in this position and even to be second this year, at 23 years old, would be a big, big achievement.

“In reality though, the feeling would really depend on how things happened - if you lose the championship because of retirements, then that would be very difficult; if it was because our competitors did a better job, then there is nothing you can do.”