In the second part of the race, after the last red flag, Alonso was in the seventh position in which he had started, and was behind Lewis Hamilton.
But instead of staying behind the top six, the Spaniard was rapidly losing a lot of ground to the leaders, at over three seconds a lap, and saw even sixth-placed Lando Norris slip away.
As happened to other drivers on the star streets of the Monte Carlo circuit, Hamilton could not find the gap, and showed his frustration on the radio. In addition, the British surprise came when with 15 laps to go Alonso accelerated the pace and even set the fastest lap at one point.
The Englishman had chosen medium tires for that restart, like the Spanish, but Alonso revealed that Alpine’s calculations did not work out.
“I think we didn’t have the tires or the tire life to finish the race with 33 laps to go,” he explained. “It was too optimistic for our car to do 33 laps on yellow tyres, so I did a lot of tire management.
“It was a sprint race [after the red flag], and we had two options: put the hard tires back on from the start of that mini race, or put the medium tyre. We put the medium tyre, but our life estimate was less than 33”.
Alonso clarified that his acceleration in the last laps was teamwork to allow Esteban Ocon to increase the gap over Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel, since the Frenchman had a five-second penalty and needed that margin to stay in the top 10.
“So we didn’t know if we could finish the race, so I managed the tires a lot for 15 laps, and then I pushed the remaining 15 laps when they told me Esteban had the penalty.
And, with a smile on his face before the DAZN F1 microphones, he hinted at the Mercedes driver: “When they told me that Esteban had a five-second penalty, I started to open a bit of a gap, but Hamilton, or he no longer had tires or I wasn’t in the mood to go faster anymore, I was a bit angry. So ok, it is what it is.”
Alonso was also asked in the English media about Hamilton’s frustration at his slow pace, but the #14 replied with a simple: “It’s not my problem.”
Just as simple was his answer to the question of whether it was difficult to keep the seven-time champion behind: “Very easy, extremely easy.”
For his part, Hamilton admitted it was “a bit frustrating” to lap behind Alonso for so many laps of the Monaco GP, and that he had to resign himself to “just” cruising “behind him”.
The Englishman did not end happily at all and lamented that he is not having any luck at the beginning of the year, while his teammate George Russell achieved a creditable fifth place. The difference between them in the championship is 34 points (4th vs. 6th).
For his part, Alonso’s seventh place is his best result so far in 2022, and for the first time he finished ahead of Ocon (12th after the penalty). Alpine is just one point away from fifth place in the constructors’ championship, which right now belongs to Alfa Romeo.
