A proud Fernando Alonso concedes that Ferrari lost the title long before the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Spaniard missed out on the 2012 Championship by three points to Sebastian Vettel after he finished second at Interlagos with the Red Bull driver coming home in sixth place.
Although the season went down to the final race of the year, the Ferrari man had just about managed to hang onto Vettel in the standings as the German won four of the previous six grands prix while he finished on the podium in the other two.
Alonso, meanwhile, managed five podiums and a retirement in that same time.
The 31-year-old concedes that the title wasn't lost in Brazil, but he is nevertheless proud of the Maranello squad's performance.
"First of all I'm very proud of the team," he said.
"We lost the Championship before today, not in Brazil, this is a sport after all.
"When you do something with your heart and do it 100% you have to be proud of yourself and your team and we'll try again next year."
He later added on BBC Sport: "I feel satisfied with the job and I feel proud of myself and the team.
"I think we gained so much respect from everybody this season. It was a good season. It was 20 races close to perfection, but we missed a little bit of performance through lack of ideas but we enjoyed it and fought until the end.
"We have to feel proud. We finished second today but it just wasn't enough."
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