He had to wait for the entire field to pass him and only after, start his own race at Albert Park. By the time the safety car came in – following an incident involving Kamui Kobayashi, Nico Hulkenberg and Sebastien Buemi – he was already running in 17th place. By lap 17, he was in the Top 10 and, after the first round of pit stops, he was battling for 6th place against teammate Felipe Massa.
In the end, having worn off his tires throughout the duration of the race, he decided to keep his 4th place behind Massa, while challenged by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber. In the end, he managed to cross the finish line in that position, scoring some good points ahead title rivals Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.
“I was P22 so I was not thinking about my team-mate at that moment, I was just thinking about scoring some points. (...) I was ready to sign before the race for this result - if you win the race you take seven points to your main competitor. Now, I took 12 points to Vettel, to Michael and to some of the main rivals for the championship. So it has been a much better race in terms of points than Bahrain, if you compare with your main competitor,” said the Spaniard.
He admitted that he raced for the first few laps without thinking too much of the potentiality of crashing, after which he really believed he could do a good job inside the points.
“The first laps with the intermediate tyres, if you see the times I was like two seconds quicker than anyone because I was not caring too much. I thought maybe I will crash or maybe I will recover my position – so it was maximum attack,” added Alonso.
“The car was perfect, and now even thinking through the race and all the analysis – there is the possibility that you can win the race even starting last because the car was so much quicker today than all the others.”
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