Stewards clear Fernando Alonso over overtake on Jean-Eric Vergne in Abu Dhabi

Fernando Alonso has escaped punishment for his controversial pass on Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne during the Abu Dhabi GP.

Alonso's finish represented a strong personal recovery drive after he failed to make Q3 for the first time in 2013 on Saturday and the Spaniard suggested Ferrari could be reasonably satisfied with the result given their weekend-long struggles around the Yas Marina Circuit. "I think I did my maximum," he said. "The car in front [Romain Grosjean], he's 30 seconds ahead. It's true that I lost a little bit of time in traffic but 30 seconds is a lot of time so we didn't maybe have the pace to be in the top four. The top five is the maximum. "We have one Mercedes in front, one behind. We have one Lotus in front, one behind, obviously with the DNF of Kimi [Raikkonen]. So my job I think is done after a very tough weekend. [It is] very difficult not having the pace [yet] we still finished in front of one Lotus and one Mercedes. "We need to do better in Austin but this time I think we minimised the damage." By completing the final stint on fresh soft tyres, Alonso was the fastest man on the track after passing Di Resta with three laps to go and ended up with the overall fastest race lap - just his second in the last two years. "I was having fun," he admitted. "It was the first laps I had no traffic in front and the team told me to push. In the other parts of the race they told me to cool the brakes. So now that I had the brakes in condition I finally pushed."