Meh, Alonso I feel has been a tad over rated this year, there is very few races he has gone out and won, with a nailed on pole and a nailed on unrivaled race win. Valencia took Vettel miles ahead, a safety car and his car blowing, Hamilton having his pit stop blown, etc, etc. A second behind Maldonado from second on the grid after Hamilton's team left a lap of fuel out of the car which wouldn't have made the blindest bit of difference to pole. Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic driver and he's pulled off some of the best overtakes this year, but quite a few of them I feel are because he is further down than he should be in the first couple laps, which always makes it easier. Ferrari qualifying badly can help make them look really good in the first lap, the Ferrari or their drivers are also excellent at starts.
he's been good but more than anything the car has been solid in every race, and he's capitalised on every Mclaren/RedBull screw up.
My gut feeling is that most teams have a bad spell in the season, Ferrari will likely have a blown engine or two, or another crash, they've been lucky all season and it rarely holds. Mclaren have dominated weekends, Red Bull have dominated weekends, Lotus have looked close, Ferrari have barely done that at all this season. To this point of the season I don't think the Ferrari has had a car capable of beating the Mclaren at more than a couple races, if that. If neither team has a mistake or a reliability problem I think the Mclaren is better and is capable of significantly more poles/wins than the Ferrari.
If Ferrari's luck/reliability holds and Mclaren/Red Bull continue as most of the season Alonso has a great shot, if Mclaren have most of their bad luck behind them, I think Hamilton has a great shot.
Button, no chance, he doesn't need 78 points on Alonso over 7 races, he needs 78 points over alonso, 40 more points than several other drives, 30 more than the others. One guy not finishing in the top 3 barely at all for the rest of the season is very possible, all 5 of the drivers ahead of him being terrible simply won't happen. If Alonso doesn't finish top 5 for 7 races, then its likely one of the guys way ahead of Button will get significantly more points from Alonso doing badly. He needs to outscore 5 guys significantly not just 1.
Alonso/Hamilton are the safe bets for the main contenders but Kimi... he's due a win or two, he's still an excellent driver, he's right up there in consistency.
I'm happy with Hamilton or Alonso as for me they are the two best drivers, probably by a fairly big margin, and the two most exciting drivers. FAR better than having a champion who simply has BY MILES the best car as has been the case for several years now.
