Fernando Alonso is adamant that he was left with no hard feelings towards teammate Esteban Ocon after a combative race between the Alpine drivers. Alonso endured a frustrating race after being unable to pass Ocon at the start, and appeared unhappy with his teammate's driving. He also radioed the team to say he was the faster driver, in an attempt to orchestrate a tactical switch in positions. Their battle also came to a head when close racing between the pair allowed McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo to overtake both drivers. Alonso continued to finish just behind Ocon, with the pair ending the race in eighth and ninth.
Alonso believes there will "never" be an incident with Ocon
Despite his apparent frustrations, Alonso insisted that he had no issue with Ocon's driving. "Obviously Daniel was on a different strategy, so I was not too concerned at that moment, it was not too big of a deal," Alonso told media, including RacingNews365.com . "We always try to race hard but always give that one percent of margin to avoid having any incident. "We have never had any [incidents], and they will never happen." Alonso was then asked how angry he was at the time of the hard racing. "You are going to be surprised by that defence. Sometimes I do the same, sometimes he does the same," Alonso added.
Alonso bemused by Alpine's pace struggles
As expected, Alpine were unable to resist the recovery drives from Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, and the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, who all started behind the Alpines. Alpine turned their attention to their fight with McLaren, and Alonso commented that their lack of pace meant a result of eighth and ninth was a good result for the team. "We were too slow, that was the problem," said Alonso. "I don't think that a one-stop strategy was particularly worse than the two-stop, but our pace today was not as good as yesterday. "I don't know if it was down to the conditions, the wind, or the temperature but we seemed to be struggling with both compounds. "All-in-all I think to score the same points as McLaren, we have to be proud and we have to be happy with the result, but probably had higher expectations after starting fifth and sixth."
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