Fernando Alonso bounced back from a difficult spell in recent outings to pull off a brilliant finish on the podium of today's Sao Paulo Grand Prix - but admitted he'd feared third place had slipped away from him in the final seconds.
Alonso started the race from fourth place on the grid. Despite having a clear space ahead of him after Charles Leclerc crashed out on the formation lap, he was still overtaken into the first corner by Lews Hamilton.
Alonso quickly retook the position after the red flag restart and spent almost the whole of the rest of the race in third, some distance behind Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
However once Sergio Perez moved into fourth behind him, the Aston Martin came under increasing pressure from the superior pace of the Red Bull and as the laps counted down he was forced into a heroic defence of his prospective podium.
Every time Perez tried to overtake him, Alonso was in the perfect place through the apex of the corner to thwart him. It started to look as though Perez had accepted the inevitable as the penultimate lap began.
Instead, the Mexican passed going into turn 1 - and Alonso thought that that was it as far as his hopes of finishing on the podium for the first time since the Dutch Grand Prix in August.
"For me, it was like 30 laps that I had the pressure from Checo," Alonso told the media in parc ferme after the finish. "But when he passed me two laps to the end, I thought, 'Okay this is gone, the podium isn't possible anymore'."
But Alonso refused to give up and took advantage of a small mistake by the Red Bull at the start of the final lap. "He braked a bit late into [turn] 1 and I said: 'Okay, I go for it into [turn] 4.'"
Alonso succeeded in recovering the position but was still pushed all the way to the finish line, which ended up a drag race to the line which Alonso won by just 0.053s as the pair crossed the line.
With Lance stroll finishing in fifth place, it was a big day for Aston Martin in their battle for fourth in the constructors championship with McLaren. The two teams are now 21 points apart with two races left in 2023.
More importantly, it's a major return to early season form for the team, hot on the heels of one of their worst outings of the year in Mexico. Alonso credited the hard work of the team getting to grips with their latest package of upgrades.
"This is a phenomenal result for the team,"Alonso acknowledged. "We've been struggling for a couple of months already, especially the last two events with two retirements.
"Obviously, we're still learning about the car, these cars are so complex aerodynamically. "We've been experimenting a little bit to find the direction for next year without forgetting that we are still competing this year.
"So this podium is for them, for everyone in the factory and we keep fighting until the last lap," he added. "I'm so happy for the result."
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