18/07/2021
NEWS STORY
Fernando Alonso believes the opening lap of the inaugural Sprint was one of his best ever.
Starting from 11th on the Sprint grid, by the end of the opening lap Fernando Alonso was up to 5th, having passed two cars into Turn 1 and another three by Turn 4.
Indeed, according to Ross Brawn, the Spaniard's opening lap was one of the day's highlights.
"Fernando Alonso's performance today was another sensational part of the race," said the F1 MD. "He got my vote for the highlight of the race... I'd buy a ticket for that every day."
Alonso was one of four drivers - another being Valtteri Bottas - to take the gamble and start on softs, and while he was to pay the price later in the race, eventually finishing seventh, it certainly gave him the edge in the opening moments.
"I think the first lap was one of the best," said the Spaniard. "I know there are a lot of first laps before, good ones, especially in the Renault days.
"But this one... not only into Turn 1, it was Turn 3, Turn 4, 6, 9 it was a more complete lap.
"Tomorrow, I don’t know," he admitted, "I think it’s going to be a long race. We saw today blisters for many people already in 17 laps. Tomorrow it’s going to be a long race for everybody, quite warm as well.
"In normal qualifying we were 11th," he continued, "so now we start 7th. I’m not sure we’re the 7th fastest, I expect a difficult race. Let’s see, I’ll see what we can do to keep attacking.
"We had to fight a little bit with the McLarens,” said the Spaniard, who, during his scraps with the Woking pair and subsequently Vettel, was repeatedly warned about weaving under braking. "We gave up that fight in a way, they were too fast. We concentrated on Sebastian and P7 is better than P11, that’s what we achieved yesterday.
"We take that, but we keep our feet on the ground, we still have a very long race in front of us, cars behind us. We have the Ferrari, we have Sebastian, Checo, the points will be hard to take anyway."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Silverstone, here.