Fernando Alonso has played down the significance of being able to battle Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari in the closing laps of the Chinese GP.

The Spaniard once again used McLaren's superior race pace to make up for a disappointing qualifying, moving up from P13 to an eventual seventh-place finish.

That would include catching and passing Vettel late on in a rare opportunity for the double world champion to race against his former team but he conceded the circumstances were not normal.

“Obviously it was not a fair fight because Sebastian had damage on his car and I was a little bit quicker on the corners,” said Alonso, with the German struggling following his collision with Max Verstappen.

The 36-year-old wouldn't show any pity either sneaking up the inside of Vettel at Turn 2 and running the man who replaced him at the Scuderia off the track.

“I was surprised when I saw a Ferrari not going too fast at the end," Alonso admitted

"He was running very wide in the corners so in the first opportunity I saw the door open and went for it and in the end at one point the track finished so he kept going until there was grass, so you need to back off at one point.”

Despite his apparent forgiveness with Verstappen over the clash which so heavily disrupted his race, Vettel wasn't too pleased with how the 36-year-old behaved.

“I was very vulnerable so he could have passed me another time,” he said. “I think the way he dived in was now or never, and I obviously had to back off, otherwise we would have just crashed.”