Alonso started on the hard tire and climbed to second place while others pitted, just behind Sergio Perez, before making a late first pit stop on the same lap as the Red Bull driver.
When it rained towards the end of the race, the Spaniard was in sixth place, and with more grip than some of his rivals, he briefly returned to third place.
He stayed out one lap too long before switching to the intermediates, however, and any podium shot was lost as he fell back to a later sixth place.
“That was of course a good race for us,” he said. “I have to say the best race of the year in terms of performance. The car felt very fast, good balance throughout the race.
“We kept the pace in the first stint with Checo. Then we switched to medium tires and were even able to overtake [Max] Staple in one place and pull away from it.
“Then it started to drizzle on dry tires and we passed Daniel [Ricciardo], Checo and [Carlos] Sainz and we were P3. So I think the podium was possible today because of the performance, the car flew. And I was very happy, but unfortunately the rain came with five laps to go.
“Some people took risks, others took other risks, and we were unlucky or we were on the podium” [finishers] let’s say we were very lucky today, but under these conditions it’s always a lottery. “
When asked if he was sad to lose the podium or delighted to see the performance in the car, he said, “We seem extremely competitive so we have to understand if we’re doing something different here, try to hold it [going] forward for the next events because the car was very fast, that was a very positive sign.
“I think we should be on the podium today in terms of the race and driving. We were ahead of Verstappen, we pulled away from him, we were ahead of Sainz.
Fernando Alonso, Alps A521
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“[Lando] Norris drove a great race and it is only through luck that he is neither on the podium nor on his first victory in Formula 1. So when it rains, that is simply a factor of luck.
“And I’m sad because if we’re not competitive and we’re P11 or P12, it never rains, so we’re never lucky. And today we are P3, today it just rained. So not sad. But we are definitely not very lucky.
“But every point we got this year is deserved, we never had any presents this year. That’s why I’m proud of every point I scored this year. “
Alpine managing director Marcin Budkowski welcomed Alonso’s result as a boost in the constructors’ championship, but added that a podium place would have been accepted if the driver and team had optimized the timing of the change to rain tires.
“We’ll take sixth place, we’ll bring the eight points to zero, on AlphaTauri and Aston Martin,” he told Autosport. “All in all, we’re doing a good operation in the championship. But the cutlery was on the table.
“It’s difficult in these conditions. It starts to rain, it can rain more or less. It looked like it was starting to rain less and Fernando did really well in the difficult light rain conditions on his dry tires and overtook a few cars.
“And the reality is, if the rain intensity had been reduced, it would probably be P2 or P1 if both [Lewis] Hamilton and Norris pitted. But it would have been a P2.
“The rain was increasing, we’re not doing this right so we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t get on the podium when we thought we could.
“But you can’t get it right every time. Some people understood better than we did, and some people got it less right than we did. “
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