Fernando Alonso admits that his race-long battle with Lewis Hamilton was like "70 laps of qualifying".

Following a poor start, Alonso had lost out to Hamilton by the opening corner and subsequently found himself in a drag race to Turn 3 with George Russell.

Eventually passing the seven-time world champion on Lap 22, while he hoped to target race leader Max Verstappen, the Spaniard ended up in a race long battle of cat and mouse with the Mercedes driver, his cause not helped by a suspected brake issue.

At one stage, advised that Hamilton was just 1.9s behind and closing, Alonso replied: "Copy, leave it to me," the Spaniard immediately opening up the gap again.

At race end it was clear that he'd had the time of his life.

"The last driver you want to see in your mirrors is Lewis Hamilton when he comes fast," he grinned. "But I had a little bit more pace in hand and in the end he was never in the DRS gap so, it was good to finish second.

"It was like 70 laps of qualifying today," he added. "There was not time to rest, and I loved it."

Asked if he felt that, but for that poor getaway, he might have challenged Verstappen, he said: "It was close... the closest I think.

"I think it was our most competitive race of the year in terms of pace," he continued, "we were matching the Red Bulls most of the race.

"Sometimes we lost a little bit of pace, but at one point I thought the race was over and second place was good and then I saw Lewis coming so fast.

asked about the brake issue, he said: "I don't think it was much, to be honest. This is a circuit that sometimes you can give up a little bit on entries to have better exits to the corners.

"We discuss also before the race that lift and coast was maybe needed at one point in the race and things like that. I was ready for that and I don't think it had an impact on the race result."

The Spaniard was also keen to dismiss claims that Aston Martin went the wrong way in terms of tyre strategy, leaving him on hards at a time his rivals were on mediums.

"We didn't have another medium," he admitted. "There is something that you need to decide before qualifying, the tyre allocation for qualifying and the race. Sometimes you decide to go for one medium, one hard, because you think it's enough, sometimes two hards, sometimes two mediums. Obviously with the very limited practice that we did on Friday, it was a guess.

"I'm happy with the decision," he insisted. "For us, the hard was not a bad tyre at all. We were able to extend the stints and on our car it was a good tyre."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 22/06/2023 0:07

"@ F1nerd...If Hamilton wasn't on the grid would the result have been any different, would the result be marked down? Certain media are pushing the envelope saying that Mercedes have got closer!! Does anyone think that Verstappen was pushing every lap? He was controlling the pace in a sensible manner and IMO could've put more time between them, if he had to."

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2. Posted by F1nerd, 19/06/2023 14:38

"The last driver I want to see on the circuit is Lewes Hamilton."

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3. Posted by Superbird70, 19/06/2023 14:32

"Right up there with ," Leave me alone I know what I am doing."."

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4. Posted by Chester, 19/06/2023 9:40

"Copy. Let me handle it. .... and then he left LH in the dust. "

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"The last driver you want to see in your mirrors is Lewis Hamilton," admits Alonso

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