'At a normal race in Monaco, we should be on the podium'

Fernando Alonso starts the Monaco Grand Prix from second position, and he can smell victory. With his Aston Martin, he proved consistently competitive earlier this season, in Monte Carlo a step up seems possible.

For anyone who might have doubted it, Alonso is really back at the top. "It feels great. I mean, I was always confident about what I could do in a car. Sometimes I was overconfident, but that's probably in my DNA. But this might be a testament to the outside world. There might also have been a lot of new fans from 2014 or 2015, or Drive to Survive or all these things, who only saw me fighting for Q3 or something. Or who saw me crash out with a lot of smoke in the back."

"So yeah, now I think they're surprised to see me fighting a bit from the front. But for me it's okay and I enjoy it, but it's more fun that people can [see it], or that the new fans can see that we are fast."

Something more to risk?

For now, Alonso has been able to credit 'only' third places in '23. Now he starts second, in a place where overtaking is difficult. But with some extra risk in the first corner, a win might be possible? " I think I risked enough today," laughed Alonso during the post-qualifying press conference.

"So tomorrow, as I said, we will try to finish the race and to take the maximum number of points. If there is a normal race in Monaco, we should be on the podium, more or less safe from the positions we have here at the moment. And as I said, if there is an opportunity or a mechanical problem from Max or a bad pit stop or a lucky strategy or whatever, we will take it. But if not, we will risk a bit more and then we will have a chance to win. It is impossible to overtake anyone," Alonso said.