Fernando Alonso said Ferrari could start "enjoy racing" again after taking his team back to the podium in the Turkish Grand Prix.
The Italian squad has had a disappointing start to its 2011 season, and had not finished in the top three at all prior to Istanbul. But in today's race Alonso was able to overtake Nico Rosberg's Mercedes for third early on then keep pace with Mark Webber's Red Bull. He then passed Webber for second, which he held until Webber retook the position in the closing stages.
"I think we did a good weekend overall," said Alonso. "The car performed a bit better than what we did in the first three races of the championship, so finally we enjoyed racing again and we enjoyed a race fighting for the podium positions, changing position through the race. Finally we can enjoy racing again."
Alonso said that after the early delay behind Rosberg he decided that second was the maximum Ferrari could achieve today.
"We lost a little bit of time behind Rosberg at the beginning, and we did not feel the possibility to fight for P1 anymore, so we concentrated on P2," he said. "I had a little bit of advantage in terms of tire degradation compared to Mark, we used the DRS and I was able to overtake him, and in the last part of the race it was more or less the opposite.
"It was okay, fighting with Red Bull these days is difficult. It was close but we'll try again."