After an action-packed opening salvo, the Interlagos race fell into a mid-race slumber, but it was revived a few laps before the end by a knife-edge duel between Red Bull driver Perez and Alonso's Aston Martin.
After hounding Alonso for third place through the third stint, Perez finally found a way past in Turn 1 into the penultimate lap.
But despite the Spaniard believing his podium chance was gone, he opportunistically took advantage of Perez going deep into Turn 1 on the final tour, gaining the momentum to draft past the Mexican into Turn 4.
Perez almost repassed Alonso in a drag race towards the finish, but Alonso held on to clinch his and Aston Martin's first podium in seven races by 0.053s.
Despite Perez's own wait for another podium extending to six grands prix, he was upbeat after what he called a hard but fair battle with Alonso, which he felt was only possible with "very few" drivers on the grid.
"It took me a while to get through the Mercedes and basically that damaged my race," Perez recounted his race.
"After that we were always a bit on the backfoot with Fernando and we were chipping away towards the end. We came really close to get to the podium.
Source: Autosport