During a somewhat mundane United States Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso managed to inject some excitement with his pursuit, battle and overtake on Williams driver Felipe Massa and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz late on in the race.
Alonso made up for McLaren’s disappointment at Suzuka, Honda’s home track, to finish an unexpected fifth at the Circuit of the Americas.
The Spaniard admits,”I didn’t expect it. Obviously it was a very good race, a very good result for us. We took advantage from Kimi and Verstappen DNFs.”
“The pace was not good all weekend long, and wasn’t good in the race, but enough to be close to the guys in front and then we differed the strategy with Toro Rosso
“They fit the soft, we fit the medium, so we had better tyre life at the end of the race and we took advantage from that.”
The differing tyre strategy allowed Alonso to close in on Massa and Sainz late in the race.
The Massa move was contentious, with Williams crying foul but the race stewards seeing it differently. With Massa dispatched, Alonso set his sights on fellow countryman Sainz who was doing a sterling job on aging tyres.
“Carlos was on a different strategy and different tyres to me and Felipe, which allowed us to close the gap. Our tyres were in better condition than the Toro Rosso’s and we took advantage of that.”
“The last couple of laps were very intense, as we had some extra speed so we tried hard to overtake. It was quite easy to overtake the Toro Rosso as they’re slow on the straights, so you just need to open the DRS.”
“I was following Carlos for 45 laps and he drove very well, very consistently, zero mistakes – so we had a great battle,” said Alonso.
“Our result today is nice for motivation, so I’m happy with fifth, but we gained a couple of positions because of other people going out, and our pace hasn’t been great all weekend here, so we need to understand the reasons for that,” concluded the two times F1 world champion.
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
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