Alonso Delighted after 'Perfect' Day

The Renault driver benefited from the retirement of race leader and title rival Kimi Raikkonen to extend his lead at the head of the Championship to 36 points with just seven races remaining.

Although Raikkonen had been able to open out a comfortable gap over Alonso in the opening stages of the race, Alonso had no complaints about how his afternoon had turned out.

"It was obviously a fantastic day and perfect for me," said Alonso. "I did a perfect race and the car balance was almost perfect from the beginning to the end.

"We didn't adjust anything in the pitstops because the car was good and competitive - although obviously not enough in the first 30 laps to follow Kimi, who was a bit quicker than us.

"So I thought at that time that second was good enough for us, but then there was another retirement for Kimi. After that, the race was a bit boring - being first with such a big gap."

Despite a Championship advantage that means only a run of retirements or extreme bad luck will now stop his title charge, Alonso still thinks Renault need to keep making improvements to their car to match the pace of McLaren's MP4-20.

"The McLaren was dominant all weekend and we saw in the race that we have improved a little bit to be a bit closer to them," he said. "For the next races we have to improve our car and package because McLaren are a little bit quicker than us.

"But the race is 70 laps and not 30. And we are finishing the races."