Fernando Alonso says bad luck is costing him points at the moment

Fernando Alonso believes that he could be challenging for the top six in the championship if his luck had been a little better at the start of the new F1 season.

The Spaniard has had a strong-looking start to the campaign but has perhaps not had the points finishes to deserve that.

In Bahrain, he came home in 9th place to earn a couple of points, whilst in Saudi Arabia he was pushing to finish inside the top six before having to retire with a fault to his A522.

Currently, then, he lies 13th in the world championship standings but with his team-mate Esteban Ocon sat in sixth place, it’s clear that the Alpine car does have the performance to be challenging up towards the right end of the grid.

And, that said, Alonso believes that with a bit more luck he could have converted the opening Grands Prix of the campaign into a higher points tally:

“I think I had two great races,” Alonso told Motorsport.com.

“One in Bahrain, but unfortunately with the wrong strategy maybe with the starting tyre, starting on a scrubbed and then that compromised my whole race, and with an engine also that was not great in Bahrain.

“And in Saudi Arabia I think I was very fast in qualifying, very unlucky because some other people didn’t have new tyres in Q3 and the scrubbed set was the fastest, unfortunately.

“So we had to overtake [some] cars and go back to our natural position, which was I think P5 or P6. Another retirement, so it’s disappointing to have only two points after two great weekends.”

“We gifted some points to the people behind us.

“It’s a long way, luck will turn around and hopefully we will receive some of these gifts in the future.

“I’m happy with the performance but, as I said, we lost points. I think I could be P6 or P7 in the