Fernando Alonso hails Japanese GP as one of his “top five” weekends ever in F1

Fernando Alonso has made an outlandish claim that his performance across the Japanese Grand Prix weekend is “inside the top five” of his F1 career.

Alonso qualified fifth before finishing sixth at Suzuka, finishing ahead of both Mercedes drivers and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

The Spaniard felt that in normal circumstances, he should have finished ninth, but his own performance meant he beat a number of quicker cars.

Alonso isn’t afraid to hype up his own performances, particularly given that he’s still looking for a 2025 drive.

Reflecting on the battle with Piastri and George Russell, Alonso conceded he wasn’t confident he could keep them behind.

“Obviously not fully confident because you never know what pace the others will do at the end of the race,” he said.

“But yeah, I think it was my best weekend, I don't know, inside the top five, ever, for me. I think P5 yesterday in qualifying, that lap, and P6 today in the race is completely out of position. So yeah, very proud.”

Alonso explained his “top five ever” claim by making it clear than Aston Martin are slower than Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull currently.

“Well, I think we are the fifth fastest team by a good margin to the fourth and good margin to the sixth. We are quite established there,” he added.

“I think there is no way to compare us with a Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes. So that's why to finish P5 and P6 is completely unusual. We did in Australia as well. We finished P6. Here, P6 again.

“Yeah, P5 I think in Jeddah, so we are executing very well, the races - and the others, they are experimenting a little bit with the strategy and other things, and we are capitalising on those. But we need to improve the pace for sure.”