Alonso delivers for McLaren

Fernando Alonso was happy to "deliver the goods" for McLaren at the Austrian Grand Prix after sealing an eighth-place finish from a pit-lane start. Alonso raced with a 2017-spec front wing at the Red Bull Ring, but was able to take advantage of a Virtual Safety Car to score for the first time in four races.

Stoffel Vandoorne broke three front wings in practice and qualifying, with Alonso then breaking the fourth and final new nose cone on his final flying lap in Q2.

It meant McLaren had to fly over a new part from their Woking base, breaking parc ferme rules in order to fit it, meaning Alonso had to start in the pits.

Alonso eked 55 laps out of soft tyres in order to make steady progress through the field and was delighted to get back in the top 10 after a disappointing few weeks in F1 which had prompted many to predict an imminent exit.

"Completely unexpected, from the pit lane to P8 is definitely great," Alonso said.

"In the beginning of the race we were behind a group of cars and we were not able to show our pace.

"In the second part, a lot of people suffered blisters on the rear tyres, and we didn't, so we had a pace advantage and we maximised that potential.

"So I'm happy with P8, and now we go to Silverstone, our home grand prix. We definitely need to deliver a better performance there and hopefully score more points.

"I delivered the goods, as I said to the team on the radio. We started the race targeting a points finish and I delivered them.

"But it was a race not without many troubles, especially in the beginning when we were in the middle of a lot of traffic and we were completely stuck there because we were following six or seven cars that were all together.

"After the pit stops I think a lot of people started to have problems with rear-tyre blisters. We didn't, and that's what allowed us to move up the order in the last few laps.

"We have to understand why we didn't suffer from blistering, if we did something different compared to the other teams, because that was the key for coming through the field."