Styrian Grand Prix: Fernando Alonso happy to claim points with "not a top 10" car Alpine

Veteran racer Fernando Alonso led the way for Alpine at the Styrian Grand Prix. He qualified P8 before finishing ninth at the flag for his third straight points finish. The result assumes great importance considering the fact that the Alpine A521 driven by Alonso was not “top 10” material. The racer and team-mate Esteban Ocon enjoyed different qualifying sessions at the Red Bull Ring. Ocon dropped out in Q1 with Alonso making his way down to Q3, before taking eighth on the grid. A major factor behind this was the penalty applied to AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Alonso admitted he was lucky to be in a position to take advantage of the Lap 1 contact between Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly. The racer eventually finished on P9 with Ocon finishing P14. There was a sheer difference in quality with the veteran powerless to hold off the faster Ferraris of Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

“It was challenging obviously. I think we are maybe not as good as a top 10 finisher, so we got lucky at the beginning with Gasly and Leclerc colliding, and then we tried to hold the position, but with the two Ferraris, we could not stop them and that was unfortunate for us. But Q3 yesterday, top 10 today, some points – not the best weekend but I think it’s challenging for our package this circuit. Unfortunately we race two times here, so we need to find something for next weekend. But we have some ideas and I’m sure we will use the next two weekends to improve our car,” said Alonso as quoted by Formula 1’s official website.

“Carlos would have overtaken us one lap later or two laps later”

The Spanish racer was unfortunate during the course of the race when he attempted to let through race leader and eventual winner Max Verstappen. Rival Carlos Sainz Jr took advantage of the blue flags to slip past him. However, Alonso had an interesting take stating that the opportunism shown had simply prevented him being passed by his compatriot a lap or two later.

“It was frustrating at the time when you lose the position because you have blue flags. But I think Carlos would have overtaken us one lap later or two laps later because the pace was much faster than us. I don’t think that changed anything in our race,” stated the racer.

Alonso has maintained his P11 in the drivers’ standings on 19 points, following the result in the Styrian Grand Prix. The veteran has scored in five out of eight Grands Prix so far this year.

Interestingly, the Styrian Grand Prix was a disappointing race for Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion might have finished second but was a good distance behind race winner Max Verstappen. Mercedes might have taken two podiums at the Red Bull Ring but were well off the pace set by Verstappen.

“Naturally they are just faster than us. There’s not a lot I can do in that respect. I’ve just got to keep trying to do the best job I can each weekend. We really need to find some performance. We need an upgrade of some sort, we need to push. I don’t whether it’s just the rear wing, or it’s the upgrade in the engine, or whatever it may be. But we’ve got to find some performance from somewhere,” read the reaction from Hamilton.