Fernando Alonso amazed to leave Hungary with extended Formula 1 championship lead

The Italian squad was unable to repeat the kind of performance that allowed Alonso to score his third win of the year last weekend in Germany.

Alonso had to settle for a distant fifth position in the race, but the result meant he still managed to increase his lead in the standings from 34 to 40 points over Mark Webber, who finished eighth.

The Spaniard admitted the weekend had gone much better than expected.

"Incredible again. Another very, very good Sunday for the championship," he said. "I don't think we have been quick on Saturday or Sunday or on Friday and we still finished ahead of our main rivals, so it's been another Sunday that was better than expected.

"I think no one here thinks it's normal to finish ahead of a McLaren or a Red Bull, but we finished ahead of one of each, so it was better than expected, especially thanks to the strategy, because the cars that finished behind us made three stops. We made two and this time it was the right call and it turned out well."

Alonso made it clear Ferrari is not hiding the fact that it needs to improve after finishing over 25 seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton.

"We've been saying that all the time," said Alonso about Ferrari's need to improve. "We finished Canada and said we needed to improve. We finished Valencia and said we needed to improve. At Silverstone we had to improve, and here we have to improve again.

"Because we won a couple of races it seemed that everything was on the right path, but we have never said anything else. This weekend, with dry running on Friday, Saturday and Sunday you can see more clearly, but Lotus, McLaren and Red Bull have been ahead of us for the whole championship.

"It's just that at the start of the year it was 1.5 seconds, then eight tenths, then four, then six. That's the great merit of the team, that with all that, we are 40 points ahead, which is completely abnormal."