Alpine’s Fernando Alonso believes his opening lap to the F1 Sprint at Silverstone was one of the best of his career, having made up six positions.
Starting from 11th on the grid on Soft tyres, Alonso passed a series of cars in the first few corners, moving into fifth place.
Although his prospects looked bleak after dropping behind both McLarens during the 17-lap event, Alonso ended the race in seventh, which marks his starting position for Sunday’s British Grand Prix.
“I think the first lap was one of the best [of my career],” Alonso said. “I know there are a lot of first laps before, like good ones… especially in the Renault days.
“But this one, not only into Turn 1, it was Turn 3, Turn 4, 6, 9 it was a more complete lap. Tomorrow, I don’t know, I think it’s going to be a long race.
“We saw today blisters for many people already in 17 laps. Tomorrow it’s going to be a long race for everybody, quite warm as well.”
Despite his advantageous starting position for the main race, the Spaniard is expecting a difficult run to the chequered flag while attempting to stay inside the top ten.
“In normal qualifying we were 11th, so [now] we start 7th,” Alonso said. “I’m not sure we’re the 7th fastest [car], I expect a difficult race. Let’s see, I’ll see what we can do to keep attacking.
“We had to fight a little bit with the McLarens. We gave up that fight in a way, they were too fast. We concentrated on Sebastian and P7 is better than P11, that’s what we achieved yesterday.
“We take that, but [keep our] feet on the ground, we still have a very long race in front of us, cars behind us. We have the Ferrari, we have Sebastian, Checo, the points will be hard to take anyway.”
