Cheeky Alonso says 'extremely easy' to keep Hamilton behind

Fernando Alonso held off a frustrated Lewis Hamilton 'extremely easily' in Sunday's Monaco GP during a prolonged third stint during which the Alpine driver was forced to manage his tyres.

Alonso spent his afternoon in the Principality fixed in seventh position where he had qualified. But as the race developed, the Spaniard found himself pacing a train of cars led by Hamilton.

However, tyre management encouraged Alonso to protect his position rather than chase Hamilton's teammate George Russell and McLaren's Lando Norris in P5 and P6.

• 2022 Monaco Grand Prix - Race results

"I think we didn’t have the tyres or the tyre life to finish the race when it was 33 laps [remaining]" Alonso said.

"It’s a sprint race, we had two choices: refit the hard tyres from the beginning of the race, or put the medium tyre. We put the medium tyre, but our life estimation was shorter than 33.

"So we didn’t know if we could finish the race, so I managed a lot the tyres for 15 laps, and then I pushed for the remaining 15 when they told me that Esteban [Ocon] had the penalty."

But Alonso's tyre preservation strategy on the medium and his relatively slow pace were a source of frustration for Hamilton for the entire duration of the second part of the race.

The Mercedes driver radioed in to inquire why Alonso was "so slow", but the Alpine charger shrugged off his rival's frustrations.

"Not my problem," said Alonso, adding that keeping the sevein-time world champion behind has been "extremely easy".

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