Fernando Alonso says he has no complaints with his runner-up finish in the Abu Dhabi GP, which was effectively 55 laps of "qualifying".
Starting fifth on the grid, Alonso made short of Mark Webber to move up to fourth place. The retirement of Sebastian Vettel gifted him another position and moments later the Ferrari driver overtook Jenson Button to slide into second place.
"It was fantastic for me," said the Spaniard.
"I had a very good start and the first lap fighting with Jenson. Then we found ourselves second and we were three to five seconds behind Lewis."
From there it was a game of cat and mouse with Hamilton as every time Alonso closed the gap, the McLaren driver extended it.
This went on for the better part of 55 laps with Alonso revealing it was like doing qualifying over and over again.
"I tried hard all race. It was an individual race against time," he explained.
"I was doing qualifying laps every lap trying to close the gap but it was one tenth up or down for the whole stint."
Ferrari, who had brought Alonso in for his first stop at the same time as Hamilton, eventually opted to bring him in later the second time around.
This was done in a bid to undercut the Brit and Alonso did his part, setting a personal best the first lap after Hamilton pitted.
However, in the end it was not to be as traffic put paid to any attempt he may have had of taking first place.
"In the last stop we were two seconds later than the McLarens. But there was a bit of traffic and I'm not sure that even with the faster stop we could have overtaken."
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