Alonso could only manage 13t♒h in qualifying after struggling with tyre warm-up in Q2, ending it over 0.9s slower than Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon.

The Spಌaniard looked back to his best on race day as a long first stint on the mediums, allowed him to switch to the hards late on and have a signific🌠ant performance advantage over his nearest rivals.

Alonso spectacularly overtook Pierre Gasly, Da♛niel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz, as he went🤪 onto finish eighth at Portimao.

Reflecting on his afternoon, Alonso sa🌳id: “It was good. It was fun. Yeah, we were fighting with one McLaren, one Ferrari, things that were unthinkable in Imola or Bahrain. So I think we make a very big step forward in terms of car ♚performance.

“From free practice we were competitive. it remains a little bit of a mystꩲery what happened yesterday. I could not feel the grip in the qualifying. I was not comfortable and probably that compromised a little bit my race but I will try to get better next Saturday on the qual🎐ifying.”

After a disappointing 🌠showing in qualifying, Alonso said he channelled the “anger” he felt into a strong race pe♛rformance.

“A little bit yeah I agree on that,” Alonso replied when asked if he was back to ‘the gladiator of old’ at Portimao. “I think Bahrain I was more careful on everything just to complete the first Grand Prix. Imola I was so uncomf🐈ortable in the car with the conditions. I didn't♛ feel good on the inters, the visibility.

“The qualifying was bad. So I think this is really the first race that I was extracting the maximum from the car. And yeah, I was upset after yesterday's quali🐈fying. So today that anger was probably ๊on track as well.”

Ocon 🐭continued his impressive form with seventh, having beaten Alonso in qualify🔯ing for the second race running.

“It’s been a strong race to have the car seventh and eighth,ꦉ it’s pretty good,” Ocon added. “We were fighting with McLarens and Ferraris here, which wasn’t the case at all in the previous races.

“We need to kee𝕴p that momentum going, keep improving the car and hopefully we can score some more points as well in Barcelona like that.”