Fernando Alonso: “I don’t think we could do much more than ninth position”

Fernando Alonso made it three consecutive top ten finishes in Sunday’s Styrian Grand Prix, with the Spaniard ending his afternoon at the Red Bull Ring ninth.

The Alpine F1 Team driver was embroiled in the battle for points all afternoon long, and although he was passed by both Scuderia Ferrari drivers, he believed he got as much out of the weekend as he could.

With a second race at the Red Bull Ring coming this weekend, Alonso says he hopes the team can analyse what happened last weekend in a bid to improve their performance second time around.

“I don’t think we could do much more than ninth position today, but it’s good to score some more points for the team,” said Alonso.  “We had a good start and fought with two or three cars on the first lap.

“After the first pit-stop we were right behind Lance Stroll in eighth and fought with him for the rest of the race. In the end the Ferraris on fresh tyres were just too fast for us.

“We race here again next week, so we’ll analyse everything and try to optimise the car for the weekend.”

“It has been a challenging weekend” – Esteban Ocon

Whereas Alonso was in the battle for points, team-mate Esteban Ocon was not able to make the same kind of impression as he struggled home in fourteenth.

After finding himself eliminated in Q1 on Saturday, Ocon was always going to find it difficult to challenge for the top ten, and ultimately, he was left floundering down the order and out of the points paying positions for the third consecutive round.

“It has been a challenging weekend,” said Ocon.  “Today, we were in a difficult position at the start and it was always going to be hard to work our way up the field.

“We were just not able to follow the group in front where there were some battles and possible opportunities to take.

“We’re back racing in Austria again next week and we’ll try some different things to find solutions. We have some directions to take and I’m already looking forward to next weekend.”

Esteban Ocon crossed the line in fourteenth on Sunday – Credit: Alpine F1 Team