Fernando takes strong fifth place after thrilling and incident-packed British Grand Prix

Fernando’s 10 points today means the team closes the gap tofourth place in the Constructors’ Championship to six points.

A red flag after an incident at Turn 1 on the opening lapbrought almost a one-hour delay to the scheduled 52-lap race. Esteban wascaught up in the incident – involving a handful of cars including Guanyu Zhou,Alexander Albon and George Russell – with damage sustained to the front-rightcorner of his A522. Esteban did well to nurse the car home during the red flagperiod, which allowed the team to make the necessary repairs to his car duringthe delay.

After the restart, Fernando, on Mediums, pushed ahead toput pressure on the McLaren of Lando Norris in fifth, while Esteban, on Softs,edged towards the top ten and into points-scoring contention. By lap 11,Fernando held sixth and Esteban seventh. Esteban pitted for Hards on lap 22,while Fernando remained out aiming to undercut Norris ahead. He pitted on lap33 for Hards before Esteban’s retirement with a suspected fuel pump issue onthe old start-finish straight brought out the Safety Car.

Fernando capitalised, pitting for Softs, leapfroggingNorris who left his stop one lap later. A seven-lap sprint to the finishbetween six cars and five different teams ensued with Fernando well in the mixfor a podium position. After a thrilling jostle for position across a number oflaps and a number of cars, Fernando settled for a deserved fifth place at the chequeredflag.

Esteban Ocon, started P15, DNF: “The most importantthing to take out of this race is that Zhou is OK after that massive crash. Ithappened right in front of me, and I was lucky to avoid most of it, but then Isustained damage on the right side of the car from contact with Alex [Albon]. Ihave to say, the guys did an incredible job getting the car repaired and readyfor the race restart, so thanks and well done to them. We did well at therestart and the pace in the car was good. A fuel pump issue on lap 38 ended ourrace unfortunately and we had to retire the car. All in all, it wasn’t a smoothweekend with some of the car issues in Q2 and today during the race, so we’llneed to look into all of this closely. It was a weekend with a lot of learningand I’m happy for the team with the solid points from Fernando today. Onto thenext race in just a few days’ time.”

Fernando Alonso, started P7, finished P5: “It wasa fun race today and we are happy to finish in fifth position. I was hopingthere would be some drama at the end, and we might have sneaked a podium withall of the action, but it was fun to be fighting amongst it inside the top fiveplaces. I think our final position should realistically be fourth because I sawCharles [Leclerc] weaving multiple times in front of Lewis [Hamilton] and,compared to what happened to me in Canada, I guess it’s not allowed and shouldbe a penalty. Looking back at the weekend as a whole, I think the car was verygood and I felt more competitive than in any other races so far this season. Weexecuted our race very well and showed consistent pace. I’m expecting us tokeep this up and hopefully maintain our competitiveness again over the next fewraces. I must say congratulations to Carlos [Sainz] on his first win and, also,I’m glad Zhou is OK after his incident at the start. It shows how far safetyhas come in modern Formula 1 racing.”

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal: “Firstof all, it’s good news that the drivers involved in the incident at thebeginning of the race are OK. It’s testament to the extraordinary safetystandards and implementation in Formula 1 that everyone was OK after a quitefrightening incident. From there, this afternoon, we’ve witnessed a quitebrilliant Grand Prix, which, for Formula 1, is a great advert for theexceptional entertainment of this sport. We’re very pleased with Fernando’sfifth place. He drove a well measured race and credit to the team for thepit-stop under the Safety Car, which allowed him to importantly jump Lando[Norris] and fight at the front towards the end. On Esteban’s side, he too wasdriving superbly well after sustaining damage early on in the race. The teamdid a great job in repairing his car and then he put himself into contention toscore good points. Unfortunately, a suspected fuel pump issue forced him toretire, and we will get on top of these issues quickly in order to ensure weachieve our goals. We leave here with ten points, a strong haul, and we’relooking forward to going to Austria this week ready to score double points.”