Alonso steady as he goes for it

MOTOR SPORT: The long wait is almost over. A little over 24 hours from now Formula One could be crowning its youngest ever champion if Fernando Alonso can maintain his relentless progress to the world title

In truth this championship should have been over three races ago but the 24-year-old Spaniard's pace has been of the sure but slow variety and his faltering speed has been exploited by McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen.

The Finn has won the last two rounds to take his win count to six, matching Renault's championship leader but while the Mercedes-powered car has had all the right ingredients to push Raikkonen to the kind of end-of-season title bout Formula One thrives on, the team have been unable to blend them into a winning combination.

The tyres have been fragile, the engine has been compromised, the job they needed Raikkonen's team-mate, Juan Pablo Montoya, to do - that of preventing Alonso from claiming second places in races - has been a disaster as the Colombian lost second place finishes in Istanbul and Spa in collisions with Jordan's Tiago Monteiro and Williams's Antonio Pizzonia respectively.

So the closing races of the season have been less a nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat course through surging seas than a tale of when not if. If not this weekend, then surely the next.

A familiar pattern has emerged. Lightning-quick McLaren storm through the opening phases of the weekend, setting untouchable times.

And then as the real meat of the grand prix weekend arrives - qualifying and the races - the wheels begin to come off. Often literally, leaving the field open for the steady and increasingly unexciting Renault of Alonso to steal through and claim ever-more-valuable points.

It has left McLaren boss Ron Dennis seething, Renault's Flavio Briatore mouthing platitudes about being superstitious enough not to organise parties in Sao Paulo and the driving protagonists scratching their heads at the strangeness of a season that has punished the quicker man and is prepared to reward the driver of a slower car.

The truth is that while Alonso's Renault has been a fading force since mid-season, he has been the epitome of reliability.

The Spaniard will be a worthy champion - if he is so designated tomorrow. Aided by bulletproof reliability he has hassled and harried his way to a 111-point score as of today characterised by a failure to score in just two of the 15 races he has started.

Yesterday the familiar pattern asserted itself again. McLaren test driver Alex Wurz completed a dominant performance on the opening day of the Brazilian Grand Prix meeting by topping the second practice session at Interlagos.

The Austrian waited until the dying moments of the session to set the quickest lap of 1 minute 12.083 seconds. That was a few tenths slower than he managed in the morning but still left him 0.6 seconds clear of McLaren race driver Montoya. Raikkonen finished the day in a solid fifth spot.

And Alonso? The Spaniard was third. Exactly the finish he needs tomorrow if Raikkonen wins. Should the champion elect claim the bottom step of the podium the long wait will be over.

Nothing is sure in Formula One, and even less so at Interlagos, a tricky circuit that could today and tomorrow be hampered by the kind of rain that caused a chaotic, accident-disfigured race here in 2002, a race that ended with just nine finishers from the 20 who started.

A predictable pattern has emerged through the course of this season but that usually means a surprise is just around the corner. Maybe the race isn't run just yet.

Australian Mark Webber has been voted off the board of Formula One's Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA).

"They thought four (directors) was one too many, so they had a vote," the Williams driver said at the Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday. "I haven't lost any sleep over it."

The remaining directors, who represent the drivers in discussions with the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA), are Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, Toyota's Jarno Trulli and David Coulthard of Red Bull.

Webber, who has been outspoken on driver safety issues and became a GPDA director while at Jaguar in 2004, said the vote had taken place some weeks ago.