A pleased Fernando Alonso chilled out in a deckchair next to a painting of his famous Brazil 2015 meme as he went into the summer break on a high with McLaren's best result of the season in Hungary.

The twist and turns had been targeted by both team and driver to finally score a strong result on merit and that they did with a sixth place for the Spaniard and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne scoring his first point of the year in 10th.

It was a double points finish that moved McLaren off the bottom of the Constructors' Championship and maybe, just maybe, could signal the start of a stronger run in the final nine races from Spa-Francorchamps to Abu Dhabi in November.

"We were probably looking at seventh or eighth position today, but with Ricciardo out of the race, sixth place became possible, and we grabbed it," Alonso, who turned 36 on Saturday, said commenting on the race.

"Still, we worked for that result all weekend, no mistakes, good practice sessions, strong qualifying and then a perfectly executed race. There are three or four weekends in a season where we can be competitive, so we need to maximise those and fully capitalise on our potential – and that's exactly what we did this weekend."

Though not putting a dampener on McLaren's achievement at the Hungaroring, the double world champion would acknowledge there is still a long, long way to go before results such as this one become more common.

"Races like Spa and Monza are going to be more difficult for us, so let's just enjoy this result and think about the difficult ones when they come," he added.

The key to his sixth place, which would also remarkably see him set the fastest lap on the final lap, was passing countryman Carlos Sainz in a move Alonso revealed he was quite desperate to make.

"We were together at the start, at the restart; we came into the pits together, we exited together and I knew I had two laps where I could really push and stress the new tyres a little bit," he said of his battle with the Toro Rosso driver in which the pair would rub wheels at one point.

"I tried to do that with some kamikaze moves at times because, after those initial two laps, I knew it was going to be impossible – it worked out fine."