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Fernando Alonso reckons he has as much chance as any of the other four contenders of winning the world title, and says he sees the run to the end of the year as a seven-race ‘mini’ championship.

Alonso is currently fifth, but lies only 20 points off leader Mark Webber, and is upbeat about Ferrari’s prospects at Spa and beyond.

“I think we did improve the car in the last three grands prix, and now we have a very competitive package,” said the Spaniard on Thursday.

“We know it will be tough competition – we know Red Bull will be strong everywhere, we know McLaren will be strong in some circuits like this one and Monza, so I expect very tough competition.

“But we have experience also of fighting for a world championship at the limit.

“Ferrari had great success as well at this circuit in the past, so there is no reason to be pessimistic at the moment.

“I think the opposite: We need to be very focused, very optimistic, believe in ourselves and trust our work, and hopefully we can continue the line we saw in Hungary and Hockenheim.”

Asked to quantify his chances, Alonso came up with an eminently logical answer: “It’s 50%: I can win, I cannot win.

“We are all the same, you know. There is a chance, and if we do better than the others in these seven races, we win the championship.

“If someone does better than us, they will be the champion.

“I think we start all from zero nearly, because 20 points is a very small difference, so just need to do a short championship, a seven-race championship.”

He added that Ferrari has some new parts for the F10 this weekend despite the restrictions on development imposed by the two-week summer factory shutdown.

“There are some new aerodynamic improvements in the car,” he said.

“Obviously with the break in August the factory didn’t work, so we have more coming in the next races, but for this race we have some improvements.”ITV-F1