Fernando Alonso insists 'kerbs have never been a problem' at Silverstone amid tyre fallout

Fernando Alonso has expressed his doubt that Silverstone's kerbs were to blame for the tyre failures which blighted Sunday's British Grand Prix.

Alonso got an unwanted close-up experience of one of the spectacular tyre blowouts when he was battling with McLaren's Sergio Perez into the closing stages of the race. "A scary moment. It was high-speed in the middle of the straight," Alonso recalled. "I was committed to go to the right to do the move on the right of him and I was lucky because if I committed to do the move on the left maybe all these pieces of the tyre will arrive to me. That's something we don't want to see but we don't know the solution either, so it's a question for Pirelli." Having slumped to tenth place in qualifying, Alonso admitted that leaving Silverstone having closed to within 21 points of perennial title rival Sebastian Vettel - who dropped out while leading with a gearbox problem - showed that good fortune had certainly been on his side in more than one regard on Sunday. "It was a fantastic result for a very difficult weekend. To score 15 points more than Sebastian is not normal in any weekend of the championship and even more difficult when your weekend is not so competitive," he said. "We did a good race, a lucky race in many moments because we had some tyre failures in front of us. We had some tyre failure ourselves in the first stop but it was happening in the last corner and I came to the pits so I lost nothing. "Then with Sebastian's retirement it was obviously the biggest advantage we take this weekend."