Alonso hails 'two great races' but too few points

Alpine's Fernando Alonso says he started his 2022 campaign with "two great races" that unfortunately yielded only two championship points.

Alonso's was the recipient of those two points thanks to a ninth-place finish in Bahrain, having retired last weekend in Saudi Arabia.

But the Spaniard insists Alpine's level of performance is better than his results suggest, with Ocon clocking in seventh in Bahrain and sixth in Jeddah, while the Frenchman also qualified an impressive fifth in Saudi Arabia.

Last weekend, Alonso was running P7 when he was forced to abandon his car on the entry to the pitlane after 35 laps due to an engine issue. The 40-year-old admitted too many points have been "gifted" to Alpine's rivals.

"I had two great races," said the two-time world champion.

"One in Bahrain, but unfortunately with maybe the wrong strategy with the starting tyres that had been scrubbed that compromised my whole race, and also with an engine that was not great.

"And now I was very fast in qualifying [in Saudi Arabia], very unlucky because some other people didn’t have new tyres in Q3 and the scrubbed set was the fastest.

"So we had to overtake some cars and go back to our natural position this weekend, which was fifth or sixth. And then another retirement.

"So it’s disappointing to have only two points after two great weekends.

"The pace seems a little bit better than what the results say. And we gifted some points to the people behind us.

"We’ll turn it around and hopefully we’ll receive some of these gifts in the future."

• Coulthard: Alpine drivers should have been reined in earlier

Although Alonso is confident of bagging some good points sooner rather than later, the 32-time Grand Prix winner still rues the shortfall in the first two races of the season.

"I could be sixth or seventh in the championship and I’m not in that position," he said. "And it’s not because we don’t deserve it. It’s just because we didn’t maximise the points."

Alpine leads F1's early midfield battle – assuming one assigns Mercedes to the top-three front-runners – but Alonso is attentive to those outfits that have positioned themselves as the Enstone squad's direct competitors.

The Spaniard is nevertheless confident moving forward.

"The Alfa Romeo seems a little bit faster in some places," he said. "The Haas was very fast in Bahrain and Russell was OK today but not outstanding.

"We are there. And now it’s up to us to make some progress.

"Maybe we are not the third fastest but it seems like we could be consistent and without the DNF we could have done sixth and seventh.

"That would put us on a good level of points. There’s still a long way to go but I felt fast on track."

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