• Monaco Grand Prix - FP2

Alonso not pushing at 100%

Fernando Alonso was the closest challenger to Mercedes on Thursday © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Monaco Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Fernando Alonso says he has not been pushing at 100% during Thursday practice for the Monaco Grand Prix.

While Nico Rosberg set the pace in both practice sessions, Alonso was a very close second in FP1 and set the third fastest time in FP2. With no unforeseen problems encountered by Ferrari during either session, Alonso said he was just pleased to avoid any major issues and would not push the car to its limit until Saturday.

"It's always nice driving at Monaco, even if it's very demanding, because here more than anywhere, you need to do a lot of running to adapt to the track and, in more general terms, get used to a very special race," Alonso said. "I am pleased that we managed to get through all our planned programme today, which can't always be taken for granted here as anything can happen!

"Even if the feelings are positive and we got through the day without any problems whatsoever, we still don't have a clear idea of the pecking order in the field. We will have to wait a bit to see where all our rivals really are, because here too, until Saturday, no one pushes a hundred percent: the barriers constitute too high a threat to take risks in the first free practice sessions."

Alonso added that he didn't find anything unexpected with regards to the tyre performance.

"There's not much time to do a tyre comparison here, we did only one and the results didn't throw up any surprises: the Super Softs are a bit quicker and degrade more. All that remains now is to spend all the available time analysing the data we have gathered to try and find the best strategy for qualifying and the race."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.