I've seen that a few posters are concerned that Alonso's current lead in the WDC will prove to be insurmountable by the chasing pack, but I would argue that, in some ways, Alonso's lead is still a little precarious.
Alonso does have the luxury of being able to finish out of the points in at least one race and still be in the lead of the WDC, but it would only take a few races like Hungary, where he did everything right and only finished in 5th place, to see that lead quickly vanish.
Lotus are looking increasingly strong - even if they haven't taken that elusive win yet, Kimi has finished on the podium three times in the past four races and heavily outscored Hamilton, Webber and Vettel in the past four races as a result. With Spa, Kimi's favourite circuit coming up and surely one of his best chances for a victory this season (Suzuka looks to be the other venue given how well the car works in high speed bends), a steady string of podiums would see him in very good shape for the title - especially since Lotus's current developments should boost their qualifying performance, one of the few areas where they have been weaker this year.
Speaking of development strategies, Lotus themselves seem to think that they might as well go for broke this year - they have said that they will push development of the E20 for much longer this season than normal, because they believe that Kimi can take the WDC this year. They seem to also fancy their chances in the WCC too - they are only one point behind McLaren, and even Red Bull is within potential reach given their recent slight drop in form (let us not forget that Grosjean is still picking up a decent number of points too, being joint equal with Button in the WDC).
Technical director James Allison told Sky Sports News on Friday that his outfit has realised that its form in recent years suffered from it electing to shift its resource on to the following year's cars - something it is not intending to do this season.
"One of the things that our team has got a little bit wrong in the last couple of seasons is that we have been too ready to switch over to the new car a little bit too soon," he said. "So we started this year consciously intending to develop this one a bit longer than normal."
Although Raikkonen is 48 points adrift of points leader Fernando Alonso, Allison thinks there is everything to play for in the championship – especially with a driver capable of securing 225 points over the remainder of the season.
When asked about the chances of Raikkonen being champion, Allison said: "Why not? There are an awful lot of points for coming first and there are a lot of races to be done. The lead is minuscule compared to the points available."
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/101702McLaren, too, are not exactly out of the fight - Button may be out of the title fight now, since that mid season slump in form has cost him dearly, but Hamilton is still in a pretty solid position and the recent upgrades they have brought have pushed them much closer to the front. The one drawback for McLaren is likely to be their tyre wear, which still seems to be on the high side compared to their rivals, and should there be a repeat of their earlier drop in form (as happened around Silverstone), Hamilton might start dropping out of contention too.
Red Bull, similarly, are not out of contention, although I think that there is still a slight question about how they will respond to their recent situation. It is hard to say whether the recent technical changes they have had to make have had any noticeable impact - Vettel was still competitive in qualifying, and although not brilliant in race trim was still fairly competitive - and although they haven't been quite on the same sort of form for the past few races, they are still in a solid position.
Now, Alonso is currently in a position where he has the luxury that his rivals are scrapping amongst themselves and potentially taking points away from each other, plus the F2012 is now a lot more competitive than it was in the opening rounds (even if I would argue that it is still probably slightly inferior to the RB8, MP4/27 and E20, just that the recent conditions in the races and good strategy calls by the team have flattered it slightly). Still, if Ferrari cannot keep in in terms of development or just one strategy call goes awry big time (e.g. like in Hungary last year, where Hamilton and Webber incorrectly gambled on intermediates when what turned out to be just a brief shower hit the track and tumbled down the running order), he could be very quickly caught - so I wouldn't say that Alonso has this title bought and paid for just yet...
"Yes, I did intentionally drive into Mr Villeneuve, but you see, I sensed he was about to run wide, and we can't have that, can we?..."
- although none of them scored by Kobayashi 
