Fernando Alonso in the race of his life!

By role
May 6 2003

Fernando Alonso showed today to the few that still doubted his skills that he is a future World Champion in the making. In a faultless performance Alonso was able to finish 2nd just 5 seconds behind Michael Schumacher.

Shucmacher, as well as Barrichello who finished 3rd 13 seconds behind Alonso, was racing the new Ferrari 2003-GA. A car hat has clearly shown that is the better of the class.

However, Alonso was able to show that his Renault has probably the best chassis in the grid and despite the lack of horsepower in its engine was able to fight for the lead until the very end.

Obviously Fernando was quite happy after the race:

"It is a dream come true", he said, "I've been pushing like hell all race long. Today, I did 60 qualifying laps ! This was the perfect place for me to get this kind of result. The fans have been fantastic and I cannot ask for any more at the moment.”

Fernando's teammate, Jarno Trulli, had an accident with McLaren's Coulthard and was forced to retire on the first lap.

Nevertheless, the team was quite happy with the second place of Alonso, who is the first Spaniard to score points and stand on the podium in his home GP. He has so far achieved 3 podiums in five races and is 3rd on the Driver's Championship behind Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher.

Fernando was also able to stay in front of the two Williams of Montoya and Ralf Schumacher who finished 4th and 5th. Da Matta was able to score his first points in Formula 1 by finishing 6th, ahead of Mark Webber and Ralf Firman who also scored for the first time in Formula 1.

Kimi Raikkonen remains in top of the Championship despite crashing against the standing Jaguar of Pizzonia at the start of the race.