Silver Arrows chief Toto Wolff assured that a seventh-place finisher at the finish line was the only one contrary to the theme of ‘porpoising’.

Satisfied, third consecutive race in points after Barcelona and Monte Carlo Fernando AlonsoJoe Bak for was also able to beat the longevity record in Michael Schumacher, 21 years, three months and eight days have passed between his debut and seventh place with Minardi at the 2001 Australian GP, ​​making the Spaniard the driver with the longest career in F1 history.

Alpine’s strategy, which chose to take advantage of the period virtual security car As for mounting the hard tires on the A522, it worked for Alonso this time. The car’s speed in the four Bach Straits was outweighed by problems in the slower sections, with the Spaniard struggling to maintain a competitive pace.

“Today’s biggest challenge was to keep the rear wheels alive. We had more damage than we expected with the tires and we had very little downforce,” Alonso said after a race in which he was able to stop the McLarens’ final attack. “We knew they expected some failure, but I always tried to calm the last three corners nicely,” Oviedo’s man added over the DAZN microphone.

Hamilton’s Lament

The general balance was positive for Fernando, knowing that regularity would weigh on this urban layout even more, so conducive to surprises. “The starts, the strategy and the pit stop were good. When you do all that in Buck you usually score positions,” he concluded.

Alonso’s satisfaction contrasts, for example, with complaints of Lewis HamiltonFourth at the finish line, about 26 seconds from George Russell, his partner at Mercedes. The seven-time world champion complained of a rattle in his single-seater. “It was the most painful and difficult race of my life. I don’t want to have that problem again and I will do anything to avoid it,” he warned after the checkered flag.