- Brazilian GP - Race
Beating Kimi always satisfying - Alonso
Fernando Alonso says he is always satisfied to finish ahead of Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and that Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix was no exception.
Alonso beat Raikkonen in a wheel-to-wheel battle at Interlagos as the two drivers' strategies crossed paths on track towards the end of the race. Raikkonen was on a two-stop strategy and therefore older tyres when Alonso cruised up behind him on fresher tyres and a three-stop strategy. He eventually made the move stick with a better run out of the final corner and the use of DRS along the pit straight to take sixth place.
Alonso has had the upper hand in the battle with Raikkonen all season, but said he still gets a kick out of beating the 2007 champion on track.
"I'm very happy and zero frustration," he said. "Finishing in front of him is always a satisfaction and this weekend I managed to finish in front in qualifying and the race after a weekend when I was struggling a bit with some mechanical issues. It was definitely a good experience, but I had one stop more so I had to recover this 21 seconds, but I had fresh tyres to give me the advantage in the last battle.
"But the most important thing was not the battle with him, the most important was the battle with the other team and we did some good points for Ferrari today and that's the best news."
However, Alonso said Ferrari had only taken sixth and seventh thanks to the problems suffered by Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo.
"The race was as we suspected. We started eighth and finished sixth with some help from Ricciardo and Bottas. The weekend in general was like in Austin when we qualified seventh and here it was eighth, and we finished in the same positions more or less. We had some graining but it's the same for everyone and we actually stopped one lap later than everyone. That was the most difficult part of the race, the rest was fairly straightforward."
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