Alonso: 'I'll help Massa' in F1 title fight.

Singapore and Japanese Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso has vowed that should the opportunity present itself, he will 'help' Ferrari's Felipe Massa to prevail in the 2008 Formula 1 World Championship.

Only last month the Spaniard had stated that he 'would like it to be Massa who wins, because if he wins it means that [Lewis] Hamilton will not' [see separate story - click here] - alluding to his troubled relationship with the Briton when the pair were teamed up at McLaren-Mercedes last year.

Now, however, Alonso has gone one step further still, and aside from simply re-affirming the animosity he clearly still feels towards Hamilton, his comments add fuel to the fire that he will be seen in one of the scarlet machines in the not-too distant future.

"Yes, no doubt, if I can help, I will help Massa," the Renault star told Spanish newspaper AS.

Alonso - who secured back-to-back drivers' world championship glories in the top flight in 2005 and 2006 - also took a pop at this year's protagonists for the crown, suggesting that the innumerable errors committed by Hamilton, Massa, McLaren and Ferrari have contributed to the relatively low points totals so late in the season.

"They have lost a lot of points," the 27-year-old asserted. "After 16 races the leader has 84 points. In 2006 I had 84 in nine races.

"In this championship the drivers who are up there have scored few points, but in the end the one who makes the least errors will win. We'll see."

Following Hamilton's failure to score and Massa's post-race promotion to seventh place at Fuji, the former now holds a five-point advantage over the latter with 20 points still to play for from the two remaining races - beginning with the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai in six days' time.