ALONSO IN THICK OF THE ACTION ON WAY TO SEVENTH

Fernando Alonso’s Chinese Grand Prix was dominated by tyres – a day after his battles in the sprint for Aston Martin.

For both races he started third, but in the main event he blasted past Sergio Perez at the long first corner to grab second. He briefly “thought it would be nice to lead the race for a lap”, but his early push to stay ahead of one Red Bull left him lacking pace as the stint wore on. His focus switched to the chasing Mclarens once Perez had got back ahead on lap five, before Alonso was the first of the frontrunners to pit. He was then serviced again under the neutralisation, where he was given soft tyres – Aston lacked any more hards, and a 33-lap stint on mediums was optimistic.

Aston team boss Mike Krack explained: “We had quite high deg in the sprint and we were concerned if we could make a two-stop work [in the GP].

“Then when the safety car period got extended [following the Lance Stroll/ Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen/ Yuki Tsunoda shunts], you could not make use of the soft in that time.

Then it was limiting the damage.”

Alonso fell from fifth to 12th with his late third stop to go back to the medium tyres. He then rose to finish seventh, his charge including a jawdropping last-corner save while pushing behind Lewis Hamilton.