Fernando Alonso admitted the French Grand Prix was a return to the kind of form the Alpine F1 Team had been showing prior to the Monaco and Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and he was happy with his eighth-place finish at the Circuit Paul Ricard.
The Spaniard admitted the tyre degradation seen in France was more than expected, but he was able to manage his race well to secure four points for Alpine in their home Grand Prix.
Alonso finished on the back of the battle for sixth behind both Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly, but he was unable to make any kind of move on those ahead before the chequered flag fell.
“We started ninth and finished eighth and all in all we executed the race how we wanted, so I am happy with the result today,” said Alonso. “We weren’t expecting the tyres to degrade like they did and our Medium tyres didn’t last very long at the beginning of the race.
“I was a little bit worried but when we switched to the Hards we showed strong pace and we carried this through to the end and it looked like we might be able to overtake Gasly and Ricciardo ahead in the last few laps.