Alonso confident despite running through engines

Fernando Alonso is confident his waning championship charge will not be further impeded by running through his allocation of engines.

This week's Monza event is among the toughest on engines, and at Spa-Francorchamps two weeks ago, the newly-installed Ferrari V8 in Pedro de la Rosa's Sauber had to be replaced.

The unscheduled change tipped the Spaniard over his allocation of eight engines for the season, resulting in a grid penalty.

And a look at the allocations of F1's other cars at Spa showed that while most drivers are now on their fifth new engine, Ferrari's Alonso and Felipe Massa have used six.

"I see no reason to worry," said team boss Stefano Domenicali before leaving Belgium.

And Spaniard Alonso has now told GPWeek: "We are confident.

"The plan of the engines is well in control at the moment. Fingers crossed everything stays like this and we know the programme for all the remaining races," he added.

"It should be enough with the engines we have. If everything goes normal there is no problem."

A bigger headache for the Italian team is that, with Alonso more than 40 points behind with just six races left to run, the F10 seemed to take a competitive step backwards at Spa-Francorchamps two weeks ago.

"Monza will be a very important race, because the championship is not looking so easy for us," admitted the Spaniard's teammate Felipe Massa.

Source: Motorsport

Fernando Alonso not worried about running out of Formula 1 engines

Fernando Alonso has played down reports he is already nearly halfway through his allocation of Ferrari Formula One engines for the 2010 season.

FIA rules state that each driver may use just eight engines throughout the entire 19 race calendar, with ten place grid penalties applying once the allocation is exhausted.

Spaniard Alonso had his first V8 changed due to overtaking after Bahrain qualifying, suffered no problems in Melbourne but then a sudden failure in Malaysia.

It is expected that Ferrari will fit the fourth new engine to the 28-year-old's F10 in China next weekend, leaving him with just four more fresh units in the bag for the remaining fifteen races.

Alonso is quoted as commenting on the engine situation by the Spanish press.

"One is broken, another (the one changed in Bahrain) I can use only in free practices, and the third one (Melbourne) I can use in more races."

"But I am not particularly worried, the team has told me that it (Malaysia) was an isolated failure, and we didn't have any problems in the pre-season," added Alonso.

Source: F1SA