Alonso celebrates after being given 4th

Fernando Alonso said his fourth place in the Australian Grand Prix came as a pleasant surprise.

The former world champion looked like he might struggle to score on his return to Renault, as the team's strategy of stopping twice with a very short final stint on the unpopular soft tyres was compromised by safety cars and traffic.

But as others fell by the wayside in the late-race carnage, Alonso mounted a charge - even passing his McLaren replacement Heikki Kovalainen and former title rival Kimi Raikkonen in a single move as the two Finns focused on racing each other.

Kovalainen then got back past Alonso after forcing the Spaniard to defend too tightly at turn 13, but when the McLaren driver accidentally triggered his pit speed limiter a few corners later, Alonso leapt back up to fourth.

He then made sure of the position by setting his personal best lap on the final tour.

Afterwards he told commentator Louise Goodman that he had no expectation of finishing as high as fourth even a few laps earlier.

"I think it was a very, very strange race with all the safety cars and all the accidents that we had," Alonso said.

"At the end I took a little bit of advantage of everything and I finished fourth, and maybe ten laps from the end I wouldn't have expected that."

He added that he had been aware of the irony of going wheel to wheel with Kovalainen - the man he swapped cars with at the end of last season.

Alonso admitted to cheering when he overtook the McLaren, but only after seeing his former team do the same when the Finn passed him.

"After seeing the McLaren pit wall doing that, I did that as well when I overtook him!" he joked.

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