Alonso: P7 in Baku one of my best ever F1 races 

Fernando Alonso reckons his drive to seventh place in a chaotic Azerbaijan Grand Prix was one of the best performances of his entire Formula 1 career. 

The McLaren driver was forced to crawl back to the pitlane with two punctured tyres following opening-lap contact with Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin, but recovered to record his fourth consecutive points finish in 2018, despite suffering damage to the floor of his MCL33. 

Alonso admits he was convinced he would have to retire on the first lap after being hit by Sirotkin as the duo ran three-wide and bumped with Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault on the run to Turn 3.

“We destroyed the car with the lap 1 incident,” the Spaniard explained. “Two punctures and we damaged the floor, the front wing, everything, so I thought it was a DNF. 

“We found ourselves for whatever reason very competitive and overtaking cars. So we stayed in the race, and then P7 is a unbelievable result, one of the best races I ever did.

“We kept in the race because you never know what could happen here,” he added. “At one point we thought it could be a point finish and then with the Safety Car we took an opportunity again, and sent us definitely a result we didn’t expect after Lap 1 when I barely managed to arrive to the pits.”

Although he struggled to match Alonso all weekend, teammate Stoffel Vandoorne secured another double points finish for McLaren having finished in ninth position. Alonso said the result can act as motivation for the team heading to the Spanish Grand Prix. 

“The weekend has been not great for us, but to finish both McLarens in the points is a great result for us. And it gives us motivation for the next race. My car was heavily damaged, so even with that we were able to fight with other teams, so happy with that.”