Alonso increased risk to 'uncomfortable level' in qualifying

Fernando Alonso says he went all-in and then some in Saturday's mesmerizing qualifying session in Monaco on his way to securing a spot on the front row of Sunday's race.

Alonso seized the top spot from local hero Charles Leclerc in the final minute of the session with a lap that put the Aston Martin driver on the ragged edge more times than he cared to remember.

But the two-time world champion's best effort was ultimately beaten by a flying Max Verstappen who edged Alonso by just 0.084s by outpacing the latter in the final sector.

"I think both laps in Q3 we were increasing the level of risk into an uncomfortable level," Alonso admitted. "I think both laps in Q3 were a little bit over the limit sometimes, but everything went fine."

The 41-year-old acknowledged however that Monaco's final sector was his weakest.

"The last sector seems our weakest part of the circuit," he said. "Already in FP3 we were I think the eighth-quickest team in the last sector.

"So there is something going on there that we need to analyse a little bit – maybe going into Singapore or whatever is the next opportunity we have."

• 2023 Monaco Grand Prix - Qualifying results

The Aston Martin garage erupted when Alonso popped to the top of the timing screens, but he knew that Verstappen would pull out the stops to snatch pole.

"Here in Monaco anything can happen, there are always a couple of incidents, yellows, red flags, so it’s better to put a lap on the board just to be at the front," he explained.

"So when they told me that we were P1 with just Tsunoda and Max completing the laps, I knew that the possibility was there to be P2."

Overall, Alonso considers that he got more than he bargained for on Saturday as he wasn't expecting his AMR23 to be as strong in qualifying compared to the car's race pace.

"Even if it feels very close to pole position, which we have to be happy [about], I think we came here with some concerns about our performance on Saturdays," he said.

"We seem very good on Sundays and the tyres degradation is very good on our car, but we struggle a little bit on the street circuits to put the temperature and to hit the lap in Q3 and we are starting in the first row of the grid in Monaco.

"So I think this is job done today."

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