Alonso delighted by second win
by Niamh O'Mahony, 12 October 2008
Fernando Alonso was happy to have claimed a second victory in 2008 at the Fuji Speedway on Sunday, this time without the luck of a nicely-timed Safety Car period.
Instead, a superb second stint from the Spaniard allowed him overtake BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica in the battle for victory, with the Pole coming home second ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.
"The start was probably the most exciting part of the race," said the Renault driver. "I saw the people in front of me going quite aggressive into Turn 1. Even myself, I locked the front tyres and went a little bit wide. The cold temperatures surprised us, we were on the prime tyres but we locked up and everyone went long.
"So I took the benefit of that and put myself behind Robert and from this point the race was a little bit easier.
"In the second stint, we managed to have some free air, with no one in front of us," he explained. "The car was very, very nice to drive again, I was pulling out a nice gap and maybe part of the victory was because of the second stint.
"Obviously we were P2 when we stopped for the first time, so I asked the team if we could manage to exit the pits in front of Robert because I wanted some free air in the second stint. So they had to put in less fuel to do that. The problem is that you need to open a gap in second stint and sometimes you can do it and sometimes not, but today the car was perfect and I was able to do it."
The two-time champion's second victory in a row was also enough to convince him that Renault are now the third best team on the grid.
"It's difficult to believe. The Singapore win was completely unexpected after a very sad Saturday [and having] come from retirement in qualifying. We won but there were some special conditions with the Safety Car, etc.
"However, today we had nothing and we won again and at a circuit that is not particularly good for our characteristics. I cannot believe it right now. Obviously back-to-back wins is a nice feeling. The team did a great job to improve the car and we are right now behind Ferrari and McLaren and this is something [that] is completely amazing."
Alonso concluded: "This year we keep learning about the new regulations with the new electronics. We did improve quite a lot the management of the tyres in the race pace and long runs.
"We understood the problems at the beginning of the season, we concentrated to work on those areas of the car and now the results are coming with improvements in the season.
"So I am very happy and very proud of my team to have the key to improve all the problems we had. It is a great job from everybody in the factory - the result is wins."