Alonzo ‘doubts’ about podium appearances for rest of season

Ecclestone’s mother-in-law kidnapped

BARCELONA, July 26, (Agencies): Former world champion Fernando Alonso doubts he will make it onto the Formula One podium this season after also enduring his worst points tally last year, but has no immediate plans to retire.

The Spaniard is 13th in the 2016 driver standings on 24 points, 168 behind leader and former McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Alonso, 34, picked up only 11 points in 2015, and although he has already surpassed that this year, Alonso is sceptical about his chances of getting a first podium appearance since 2014 and since rejoining McLaren.

“It’s very difficult for us to get a podium this season,” Alonso told Spanish radio station Cadena Cope on Tuesday.

“In normal conditions we still wouldn’t deserve a podium. I hope we the past, I’ll have no problem continuing. I’m aware that I’ll never be 20-years-old again but I have more experience and more knowledge now.”

The Spaniard finished seventh in last week’s Hungary Grand Prix and is now preparing for this weekend’s German Grand Prix.

Meanwhile, the mother-in-law of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has been kidnapped for ransom in her home city of Sao Paulo, Brazilian media reported Tuesday.

Aparecida Schunck Flosi Palmeira, 67, was seized Friday night in Interlagos, the Sao Paulo neighborhood that hosts the Brazilian circuit of the F1 Grand Prix, TV Globo reported.

There was no confirmation from Brazilian officials or from Ecclestone’s staff in London.

“We neither confirm nor deny this report,” a spokesman for the regional security ministry told AFP. “That is our policy in cases of suspected kidnapping, to avoid putting the lives of potential victims in danger.”

According to Globo, the kidnappers are already in contact with the victim’s family.

The Veja weekly reported that they were demanding payment of a ransom in pounds sterling worth 120 million reais (36 million dollars).

Aparecida Palmeira is the mother of Ecclestone’s 38-year-old Brazilian wife Fabiana Flosi, who met the 85-year-old billionaire while working for the Interlagos Grand Prix in 2009.

The couple married in Switzerland and live in London.

Alonzo