Fernando Alonso hailed the progress of McLaren-Honda after the Belgian Grand Prix in which he started from the back of the grid and but at one point was up top fifth place, but eventually had to settle for seventh.
“The progress of the team in the last months is just amazing,” Alonso told journalists after the race. “It would have been impossible to imagine this a couple of weeks or months ago. We are in the right direction. That is for sure.”
With a 60-grid penalty, Alonso’s plight was to start from the very back of the grid at Spa-Francorchamps alongside his former nemesis Lewis Hamilton who also had penalties of his own.
However a chaotic start played into Alonso’s hands, using his well known race craft, the Spaniard was soon in the top ten and realistically targeting unlikely points.
“For sure to fight for P7 is still not what we want. But if we keep that momentum for next year, that will be great news. I am optimist for the future. And now we are coming to tracks that are less complicated. Except Monza, which is really a difficult track for us.”
“Today everything went well, all the bad luck we had all weekend became good luck today, I managed to avoid all the accidents, we were lucky with the red flag, as could get a free pit stop and put new tyres on.
“To start 22nd and finish 7th is a great result and for us to fight with Williams and other teams is a bit new, especially in a circuit that didn’t favor our car. Getting into Q3 with Jenson yesterday and getting into the points with me today shows the team has done a good job.”
Running fifth prior to the red flag caused by Kevin Magnussen’s heavy shunt at Eau Rouge, Alonso lost the position shortly after the restart to the Mercedes of Hamilton. Then in the dying stages of the race the Spaniard had to concede positions to Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Perez in the Force India.
Nevertheless seventh was his reward for his graft on an incident packed afternoon in Belgium.
Content on GrandPrix247.com by: staff & contributors, Reuters, AFP, GMM, Getty, Formula 1 teams, sponsors & organisations.
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
No comments:
Post a Comment