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Prost Praises Vettel for Not Giving Up on 2009 Title

Alain Prost is happy to see that the title fight is not over and that Sebastian Vettel is still thinking of the F1 crown. Even though nobody was giving him a chance for the championship win, the German scored a perfect victory from pole position at Suzuka and is now only 16 points behind Jenson Button in the overall classification.

Considering what happened to Lewis Hamilton in 2007 – when he lost the title to Kimi Raikkonen despite having a 17-point lead over the Finn with 2 races to go – there's no reason why Vettel shouldn't feel optimistic for the remaining 2 rounds of the season. And, considering that fact that the Interlagos track will suit the Red Bulls perfectly, the title fight promises to be more interesting that expected.

Now, this team is really behind him. A while ago everyone was dejected and saying that the championship was lost, except Vettel who said it was not over and they had to keep fighting. In Sao Paulo I see him being very difficult to beat,” said the 4-time world champion in an interview with Europe 1 radio.

Following his dominant win at Suzuka over the course of last weekend, it is rumored that the German driver made his mechanics a quite strange promise. It seems Vettel told his team that he will continue to grow his beard for as long as he is mathematically still in the title fight.

No longer than last month, soon after the Italian Grand Prix, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz expressed his pessimism over Vettel's title chances. He blamed only Renault for this state of events, as the constant failures of Red Bull's engines – supplied by the French manufacturer – caused Vettel to use all his allocated power plants for 2009 (8).

Vettel is currently the only driver in the Formula One roster to have used all his engines before the Japanese Grand Prix. Any extra engine used by the German driver from now on will enforce a 10-place grid penalty.
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