Alonso: Sixth possible without Magnussen clash

Fernando Alonso believes sixth place was a realistic target had he not been “pushed off track” by Kevin Magnussen in the Formula 1 British Grand Prix. 

The McLaren driver rose from 13th on the grid into the top 10 as he made strong progress throughout the race, before becoming engaged in a scrap with Haas driver Magnussen over eighth position in the closing stages. 

Alonso claims Magnussen left him no room as he attempted an overtake, with Magnussen instead running him out wide and onto the gravel at the exit of Luffield. Despite losing momentum, Alonso was still able to find a way past the Dane to claim eighth on the final lap.  

“Kevin [Magnussen] pushed me off the track in Turn 7 and without that, thanks to the Soft tyres, we would have been able to fight with Ocon and Hulkenberg to be 6th,” Alonso said. “We had to fight back and overtake Magnussen in the last lap. 

“I went around the outside and when I came back to the normal line I was pushed off, into the gravel. We’ve been told you have to leave room for the other car but some don’t and nothing happens. 

“Then, as we were stuck behind a big group there was no possibility to attack those at the front of that group. I think we lost at least one place, but at the end we finished ahead of Magnussen.”

Alonso believes the stewards were too lenient and felt Magnussen deserved a penalty for the incident. 

“He fought hard - like he always does, and the FIA was a little soft today, in my opinion,” he said. “In 99 per cent of those cases they penalise or make the driver give the position back.

“But today they didn’t follow that road, so we have to respect that and overtake him on the track. And that’s what we did. In the end there was maybe not a big difference in terms of position, so I’m happy for that.”

The Spaniard reckons McLaren failed to achieve the maximum result with the performance it was able to extract on race day. 

“Eighth place is probably not enough for the performance we had in the car today,” he added. “I think after the Safety Car, on the Soft tyre and with the other cars that hadn’t pitted we had the advantage and the end of the race but we couldn’t capitalise on that advantage because we were stuck in traffic.

“But this means more points for the team and we take them with no doubt. Hopefully we’ll have this kind of races without Safety Cars or things happening to the others, thanks to our own performance and hopefully we’ll see that in the next race.”