Alonso's third-place finish in Monaco vaults him into F1 championship lead

Fernando Alonso left Monaco with a three-point lead over Sebastian Vettel in the season championship standings.

Against the odds, Fernando Alonso has moved back into the lead of the 2012 Formula One World Championship points chase after finishing third and ahead of Sebastian Vettel at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.

Starting fifth on the grid, Alonso gained a place from Romain Grosjean at the start, and later he jumped ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the pit stops.

“I think the start was the first point where we had the opportunity to gain some places, we did a great start again,” Alonso said. “We had to lift off because there was no space between Lewis and Grosjean, if not we could also overtake Lewis at the start and maybe the race was different. 

“It was good being fourth in the first corner and then Lewis had quite big degradation, because he was so slow. Before the pit stop we get close, and then with one extra lap it was enough to jump him at the stop. 

“I think the tires were surprisingly good, surprisingly consistent, so with the warm-up problems and the pace that we had after the pit stop, I think if we run longer with that tyre maybe there was the chance to win even more positions, as Sebastian [Vettel] tried to do. So, that was close but it is always difficult to predict. I think it was surprisingly good, the super-soft, and maybe surprisingly difficult to warm up the softs. You never know--only after the race.”

Alonso was hoping that the late rain would give him a chance to challenge for the win.

“I think at 20 laps to the end they said, ‘Maybe rain is coming'. And I said, if rain is coming, we have to attack. We would put on intermediate tires and there is always a better chance to overtake in the wet than in the dry. We were out there ready to risk, because victory in Monaco means a lot. So, we were optimistic on that, but then five or six laps to the end with the drops of rain that we had, I think we were all praying ‘no more rain' because it was so difficult. 

“The difficulty of being the first two or three cars, you don't know how the next corner will be. You have a little snap, a little bit of front problem in the corner before, you see all the drops on the visor on the straight and when you approach the next corner at 250 kph, how wet will be that corner? You never know. At that point, five laps to the end, we all, I think, want to keep positions and finish the race as we were.” 

Alonso continues to be surprised by the championship situation that has resulted from his consistent scoring, but says that the team is making genuine progress.

“This was definitely a very strong weekend with a good qualifying position, and I think a good race position as well. In fact we overtook some other teams in the constructors' championship today with some good points, finally, so I was happy for that, happy for the direction or happy for the momentum that we seemed to have kept from the Mugello test so that we brought some updates for the car. 

“Everything seems to work, not as at the start of the championship when some of the updates were negative and we were a little bit lost, so now we are happy not for the result, not for the pace which we understand that we need to improve--we are not the fastest out there--but happy for the direction that it seems we are in. Everything that we put on the car seems positive, so the next couple of weeks will be important.”