Alonso start♕ed and finished ninth at the Red Bull Ring on Sunday to continue his points scoring streak, stretching back to Azerbaijan.

T🅠he Spaniard surrendered 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 lost out to the Ferraris aꦛs the race p𓃲rogressed, ultimately falling back to where he had started.

Reflecting on the Styrian weekend, Alonso felt ninth wܫas simply where Alpine deserved to be.

“It was good,” Alonso s💦aid 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 could have done much better than P9 so I take these two points. 

“Maybe Stroll we could have fought a bit with him with better 𒊎luck, but Mercedes, Reꩲd 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 Prix, Alonso predicts it will be🌃 another “challe💝nging” 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 c🙈an have in terms of points. 

“I think we did it we♔ll 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 challenging 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 was a very flat race, no retirements, no sa😼fety car, nothing happened, so ninth is what you get.”