Alonso started and finished ninth at the Red Bull Ring on Sunday to continue his points scoring streak, stretchi༺ng ba🔯ck to Azerbaijan.

The ꦑSpaniard surr💝endered a position to Lance Stroll on the opening lap, with the Aston Martin driver pulling off a spectacular move around the outside of Turn 6.

Alonso l𝓀ost out to the Ferraris as the race progressed, ultimately falling back to where he had st✃arted.

Refl𒁃ecting on the Styrian wee♒kend, Alonso felt ninth was simply where Alpine deserved to be.

“It was good,” Alonso said after the race on Sunday. “I think being in the top 10 again and scoring some points was the target. I don’t think that we c🌠ould have doꦅne much better than P9 so I take these two points. 

“Maybe Stroll we could have fought a bit with him with better luck, b🐭ut Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, they were way too fast for us today so P9 is well-deserved today and we take these points.”

With F1 returning to the Red Bull Ring this weekend for the Austrian Grand P❀rix, Alonso predicts it will be anothe🐼r “challenging” weekend.

“Obviously we know our strengths and we know our weaknesses so we try to use them in different places,” Alonso added. “I don’t think Austria is our best circuit as we saw yesterday, and as we see today. Unfortunately we have two races here so we 🐬have to manage the damage that we can have in terms of points. 

“I think we did it well in race 1 as we scored one more than AlphaTauri and two less than Aston Martin so we managed to limit this damage, but yeah, in race 2 it’s going to be another cha♊llenging this weekend. We try to do better, but it is going to be difficult. I think this is our limit. I feel like I was maximising everything being in q3, maximising today, being in the points. I don’t think there is more. 

“You need some retirements or luck. It wa🐬s a very flat race, no retirements, no safety car, nothing happened, so ninth is what you get.”