Alonso retracts earlier comment: 'The heart is always in the here and now'

The frustration Fernando Alonso had after Saturday's sprint race seems to have disappeared. Speaking to Formula1.com Alonso called his race on Sunday where he finished fifth "a perfect Sunday" and nuanced his comments from earlier in the weekend.

Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer lashed out hard at both his drivers after the end of the sprint race. Alonso and Esteban Ocon hit each other which virtually ended the race for both of them. The two Alpines had to start from positions sixteen and seventeen on Sunday and for a while it looked like Alpine would lose the fourth spot in the constructors' standings to rival McLaren.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Both McLaren's crashed out, Alonso managed to keep both Red Bulls behind him in fifth place, and with an eighth place Ocon also took crucial points for the team. Whereas on Saturday Alonso was still only criticising the team and his teammate, he was a lot more positive after the race on Sunday: "It was a very good race. We chose a three-stop strategy. We were out of sync with most of the cars, but in the end the last Safety Car shuffled the race a little bit. I had newer tyres, so I could have some fun and some battle with Checo [Perez] and Charles [Leclerc]."

'The heart is always in the here and now'

After the collision with Ocon on Saturday, Alonso bluntly said he could not wait to leave the team at the end of this season. Now he nuances that a bit: "The head may already be thinking about next year but the heart is always in the here and now. As soon as the lights go out you are only concerned with the car and the race of that moment."