HUNGARORING -- Fernando Alonso says sixth place at the Hungarian Grand Prix was in line with his expectations during the race, but that his fastest lap came as a complete surprise.
The result was McLaren's best of the season and added eight valuable points to his tally for the year.
Alonso started seventh and ran in the same position for the first half of the race after Daniel Ricciardo was taken out ahead of him and Carlos Sainz got ahead at the start.
Alonso managed to pass Sainz at Turns 1 and 2 after they pitted together on lap 35 and went on to set the fastest lap -- a 1:20.182 - on the penultimate lap.
"The fastest lap is probably a surprise, so that is really a gift," he said. "I think the sixth place in the final result is more teamwork and something we were hoping for. But the fastest lap we take it like a birthday gift.
"I wanted to do a quick lap, I saved my tyres as much as I could and then I tried to push to the limit and it went well. I feel very good with this new generation of cars, I like racing them, so we got the result by using what we had to the maximum possible.
"For sure this was our best race of the season in terms of performance. We got the result we wanted, behind the top team, we secured important points. We know we have two or three races per year where we have the chance to do well and we cannot make any mistakes there."
Alonso passed Sainz around the outside at Turn 2 after a lunge at Turn 1 saw him run wide and the Toro Rosso cut back underneath him. While he admits the move may have looked desperate, he said he only had a two-lap window to get it done.
"We came to the pits together and we exited together and I knew that I had two laps with the new tyre where you can really push and stress the tyre a little bit. We saw kamikaze moves at times, but I had to try because I knew after those two laps it wasn't possible anymore. I tried and it worked fine, but Carlos did an amazing job again. Sixth and seventh, we should be very proud."