Alonso rues Monaco clash with Perez

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso didn't have the best of visits to the principality of Monaco this weekend, ending up finishing one position down from his qualifying spot of sixth place after tangling with a feisty Sergio Perez.

The McLaren driver slipped down the inside of the Ferrari into Nouvelle Chicane, forcing Alonso to cut the corner to avoid taking both cars out, but then being forced to hand over the position to Perez because he went outside the track limits in the process.

"Arguably I cut to avoid the contact because I turned and I was not alone in the corner or anything and missed the chicane," he explained, "I was perfectly able to do it but here in Monaco there is no space for two cars and I cut to avoid the contact and then you need to give back the decision always.

"If I had not cut the chicane, I would not have been able to avoid colliding with Perez and the same thing happened at Loews with Sutil," he added, while admitting that it had been his performance in qualifying that was the root cause of his Sunday headaches.

"This race came at the end of a weekend that overall was difficult, starting with a qualifying that left me in the middle of a group of drivers who had nothing to lose," he said.

Although Ferrari's management team appealed to the FIA that Alonso's hand had been forced to avoid a collision and that he shouldn't lose a position because of acting responsibly, Alonso himself admitted that it was the right call.

"I tend to agree with the decision because I cut a little bit the chicane," he said. At the mid-race interval caused by the red flag for Pastor Maldonado's massive shunt into the barriers, Alonso even walked over to Perez on the grid and shook his rival's hand to show that there were no hard feelings. "I agree with that decision," he said.

But Alonso did feel that Perez was pushing his luck with some of his moves, and wasn't surprised at where the McLaren driver ended his day after a subsequent clash with Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus at the same spot.

"He has the car parked in the Rascasse, that is the only point that you can say," said Alonso. "He was lucky this year in two or three incidents. In Bahrain [there had been] nearly contact with Jenson, with me I was off the track avoiding contact. Here at the chicane I avoided contact again, but Kimi was not lucky because he didn't avoid the contact. But only McLaren has to be happy with him."

Alonso blamed his own clash with Perez as one factor behind the remainder of his comparatively lacklustre day in the principality on Sunday.

"With a bit of Perez's car in our front-wing we lost a bit of aerodynamic performance in the last part of the race, but even in the first part of the race, when everything was normal, we just didn't have the pace," he said. "So far things have always improved in the race - that wasn't the case today, maybe down to a lack of traction, a problem we had seen before in Bahrain.

"We need to understand why it happened and when we are back to Canada then I hope that everything will be back to normal."

As for his clash with Perez, Alonso admitted that he saw something of his younger self in the Mexican, who is in his first season with McLaren. "His approach reminds me of my own in 2008 and 2009," said the double world champion.

"When you are not fighting for the Championship, you can take more risks, while for me today, it was important to finish the race and bring home as many points as possible," Alonso pointed out. "That approach has allowed me to close a bit on Kimi in the classification and even if the gap to Vettel has grown a bit, we know that sooner or later, an opportunity will come to close up on him too."

Alonso was clearly taking heart in the fact that despite finishing in seventh position, he was helped by Nico Rosberg's victory in Monaco keeping Sebastian Vettel from clinching the points for first place.

"Today's outcome doesn't bother me in terms of the next round in Canada, because we have to consider Monaco a law unto itself, with a different set-up and unusual strategy as well as being a place where it is almost impossible to overtake," he said.

"We know there is still much to do to improve, but we are looking ahead with confidence," he added.