Fernando Alonso admitted French Grand Prix was a return to the kind of form that Alpine F1 team had shown before Monaco and Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and he was happy about his eighth place at Circuit Paul Ricard.
The Spaniard admitted the tire degradation in France was more than expected, but he managed his race well and secured four points for Alpine at the home Grand Prix.
Alonso ended the battle for sixth place behind both of them Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gaslybut he was unable to move the front until the checkered flag fell.
“We started ninth and finished eighth. All in all, we drove the race the way we wanted, so I’m happy with the result today, ”said Alonso. “We didn’t expect the tires to degrade like they did, and our medium tires didn’t last very long at the start of the race.
“I was a little worried but when we switched to the Hards we showed strong pace and pulled it through to the end and it looked like we could overtake Gasly and Ricciardo in the final laps.
“We have now shown similar performances on some tracks on both Saturday and Sunday so I think we can be a little more relaxed as this is our real position and not the one we showed in Monaco.”
“It wasn’t the race we were hoping for” – Esteban Ocon
Teammate Esteban Ocon was less successful as the Frenchman was fourteenth and felt he was missing something compared to Alonso that the team can find ahead of the double headed ball in Austria.
Struggling to find the pace to compete for points on either the hard or medium Pirelli tire, Ocon was struggling well outside the top ten.
“It wasn’t the race we were hoping for today and overall we had a disappointing weekend,” said Ocon. “Today it felt like we were missing something and we have things to check.
“The pace wasn’t there on either tire, they deteriorated pretty quickly and that meant we weren’t able to go towards points. We will learn from this weekend and move forward.
“The next race is next week and we want to come back strong.”
Esteban Ocon couldn’t improve beyond 14th place in his home Grand Prix – Credit: Alpine F1 Team
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