Fernando Alonso was hopeful of clinching a top-ten finish in the Dutch Grand Prix, but circumstances and strategy choices forced the Alpine driver to put in "70 laps of qualifying" to reach that target.
Both Alonso and teammate Esteban Ocon had missed the Q3 cut after a difficult Saturday afternoon session, the pair lining up P13 and P12 on Sunday's grid.
Oddly, Alpine did not include Pirelli's medium compound in its race plans, rather building its unique strategy around the soft and hard tyres.
In the end, events led to Alonso and Ocon relying on a soft-to-hard-to-soft pit stop plan that proved relatively successful thanks to the pair's solid race pace, especially on the hard, middle-stint rubber, and to a bit of luck.
"It was for sure 70 laps of qualifying today because we could not relax at any point," said Alonso who clocked in P6 at the checkered flag, three spots ahead of Ocon.
"The start was good, but I lost places on the outside of Turn 1 so I had to fight very hard to recover some.
"Then we put the hard on and had to push very hard to make that middle stint work.
"We thought that it was a more relaxed part of the race with a good fresh tyre. Then came the safety car and we had to fight again, all the last 12 laps."
During the late safety car period, Alonso managed to gain an upper hand over McLaren rival Lando Norris and move up to seventh, while a five-second penalty handed to Ferrari's Carlos Sainz pushed his final position in the standings to P6.
Although it had been a "very intense" afternoon, Alonso described his race as "one of the best" of this season, while Ocon was also happy to help Alpine outscore championship rival McLaren by a few points.
"Very, very satisfying," said the Frenchman.
"We were clearly not at ease this weekend in comparison to the McLarens and we still managed to outscore them so it’s very positive.
"But we could have outscored them more, that’s how I see it."
Ahead of next weekend's round of racing at Monza, Alpine consolidated its fourth-place position in F1's Constructors' standings and now sits 24 points ahaed of McLaren in P5.
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