From 13th position, Fernando Alonso managed to manage the Zandvoort race to perfection and, despite two improvable pitstops, finished in sixth position and scored good points.
Like most, Alpine opted to go out with medium tires. In a clean start, he tried to win the game against his teammate Esteban Ocon, who went inside and, beating Pierre Gasly, left the man from Oviedo just behind. The Spaniard wanted to attack the Frenchman, but at turn 2 he slightly lost control of the car, and was also overtaken by Yuki Tsunoda.
After working at it for many laps, finally at the start of lap 10 he took advantage of the DRS to pass Gasly down the straight and take 12th. And just two laps later, he also accounted for the Japanese’s AlphaTauri to win one more place.
Alonso stopped at the end of lap 12 to fit hard tires and, by the time everyone got in, he had undercut Ocon and slipped into the top 10, ninth.
“The truth is that today we expected to be in the points, but after the start in which I was a bit boxed in from the outside, I thought it was going to be difficult, but ok. First we overtook the AlphaTauri on the track, we stopped very soon to ride hard, we had to squeeze them as much as possible,” he summed up before the DAZN F1 microphones.
On lap 48, Alonso took advantage of the mess of Tsunoda and the Virtual Safety Car to get in and ride softs. With that red Pirelli compound, she even set the fastest race lap in the 50th, although she was quickly overtaken by Max Verstappen.
Alonso lunged for Norris with a valiant overtaking attempt on the outside of Turn 1, but the Briton closed the door. Then, when race direction forced everyone to go through the pitlane instead of the main straight during Safety Car , he was about to touch a Carlos Sainz with whom Ferrari had committed a clear unsafe release that would later be sanctioned.
Norris’s stop had allowed Alonso to be seventh, and he would finally take advantage of that penalty on Carlos Sainz to be sixth.
“In the end I had a set of new softs that worked out for us. But then the last Safety Car worked out badly because everyone stopped and put on tires a little fresher than ours and I was scared for Norris and for Esteban [Ocon], but in the end nothing, we managed to hold on and be sixth, we would not have imagined it yesterday”.
After a difficult start to the course and scoring points in the Spanish GP, Alonso had commented that he hoped to have a streak of ten consecutive points scoring races. He has finally made it, and he joked about what’s coming now: “In Barcelona I said I hoped to make a run of ten races in the points and I’m a little scared in Monza, because it’s the eleventh race, so let’s see if we can do eleven or twelve in a row.”
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Erik Junius
Photo by: Erik Junius
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Foto de: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Foto de: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Erik Junius
Before the international media, Alonso was asked to assess his performance in this Dutch GP: “It was good, there were 70 qualifying laps because we couldn’t relax at any time. The start was good, but I lost positions on the outside of the curve 1, so I had to fight really hard to get some back. Then we went hard and had to push really hard to get that middle stint to work.”
And then when we thought it was a more relaxed part of the race at the end with new soft tyres, the safety car came and we had to fight again for the last twelve laps, so it was a very demanding race.”
When asked directly if it had been his best race of the year, he replied: “I don’t know, obviously I have to see it well, but one of the best, for sure.”
After being annoyed by Lando Norris’ defensive position on the outside of Turn 1 midway through the race, he was more conciliatory in front of the microphones: “Yes, it was good. The only problem with this car is that when you go through the curbs of start you damage the car. I think it happened to Checo [Pérez] at the end with Carlos [Sainz] and I was lucky, so that rule is always very strange. If there was a wall there, maybe you would treat it differently from the one that goes by out. We all pushed out, but it was good.”
Alonso revealed that the team’s simulation placed him ninth before the race. Now, without rest, the Italian GP arrives, where the French car aspires to a great result due to the top speed it enjoys.
“Hopefully we seem to have little drag on this car and, especially compared to McLaren, we look pretty good on that long, straight track. So let’s see. I want to stay in the points.”
