Alonso not disappointed by Vettel result

Fernando Alonso kept his title challenge on track with a superb second place in Abu Dhabi, having started only sixth on the grid.

The Spaniard insisted that he wasn’t disappointed to have gained only three points on his title rival. Sebastian Vettel seemingly faced such an uphill struggle, and yet the German ultimately finished third, and remains 10 points clear.

“To be honest we were concentrating on our race,” said Alonso. “Our simulations we had gave us the possibility to finish fifth or sixth, so we were not very optimistic with today’s race, and despite what Sebastian was doing in the race we were taking eight, 10 points maximum in our simulations. So we concentrated on our race.

“He did a very good race, and he was able to use the performance in some of the parts of the race when he was in clean air, plus the safety cars that I think put the group all together. So at the end I think this is nothing we can do, we just need to concentrate on our race and if we finish in front of Sebastian in the next two races then maybe we have a chance. So that’s our concentration now.”

In the closing laps Alonso pulled away from the Vettel/Button battle and put pressure on leader Kimi Raikkonen.

“There was no more concerns about the tyres because obviously doing one stop you never know how the tyres will finish the race. And also after the last safety car we saw Sebastian with the soft, and the first three of us, we were with the prime, so we didn’t know how much a threat was Sebastian for fight until the last lap.

“So after they lost a little bit of time, Jenson and Sebastian, and we didn’t care anymore about the tyres, I pushed 150% for eight laps and I tried to catch Kimi but it was never enough to be within one second for the DRS to be even closer. So at the end we didn’t have the pace to win but fantastic race anyway.

“We didn’t have the pace this weekend in any practice, in qualifying seventh and ninth and then today we were fighting for a victory – surprising again. This is thanks to a perfect car for the race, a perfect start, perfect strategy, perfect pitstops so everything perfect Sunday for us, maximising what we have in hands.”

Alonso said that the latest update package had made a difference.

“I think it helped for sure because when we tested it on Friday, they gave us some performance but we are talking very few hundredths of advantage that for sure when you have a gap to close that is a couple of tenths, when you bring hundredths and your opponents bring also some new parts, I think more or less you are in the same position.

“So, we need to keep working and in Maranello they work day and night very hard to bring new parts. Here in the track, mechanics work 24 hours and we are doing our maximum and we sure that hopefully it will be enough.”