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'You just knew whenever you were up against him he'd never make your life easy'

'You just knew whenever you were up against him he'd never make your life easy'

08-06-2021 20:32 Last update: 22:29
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GPblog.com

Fernando Alonso was able to make up four places in the closing stages of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, resulting in his best finish to date for the Alpine F1 Team. The Spaniard started the restart in tenth place and crossed the finish line in sixth place two laps later.

Due to the red flag situation at the end of the race at the Baku City Circuit, the drivers had to rejoin the grid for just two laps. The intense battle between Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc for P3 was particularly notable, but there was a lot more going on behind them.

Very strong restart of Alonso

"The biggest winner was Fernando Alonso," says Jolyon Palmer in his column on F1.com. "Alonso has always been aggressive and opportunistic but clean on the opening laps and for almost a decade in Formula 1 he has typically been making up places at the start."

At the restart, Alonso immediately climbed three places to the front. Later he managed to overtake Yuki Tsunoda with a nice move on the outside of turn 5. Palmer has driven against the Spaniard for a couple of years when he drove for Renault and thinks Alonso has a good sense of space.

Fight with Alonso never easy

"Having raced alongside Fernando for a couple of years, I’d say he was certainly the driver with the best spatial awareness and tenacity to gain places in the midfield fight at the time. You just knew whenever you were up against him he would never make your life easy," Palmer concludes.