The Australian Grand Prix promised a great result for Fernando Alonso, but the poor reliability of the Alpine and a safety car at the wrong time ended up ruining the weekend for the Spanish driver.
According to what was seen this weekend in Albert Park, it is very likely that Fernando Alonso has missed the opportunity to get on the podium for the 99th time in his career in Formula 1. And it is that the Spanish Alpine A522 had more than enough rhythm to beat the Mercedes and McLaren in Melbourne. George Russell stepped onto the podium.
But everything went wrong on Saturday, when a Fernando Alonso who had the speed to secure a place on the second row of the grid suffered an accident after a mechanical problem in his #14 Alpine. This condemned him to tenth position on the grid, being forced to start the race with a alternative strategy to try to come back.
the safety car
And things started off well, with Fernando Alonso maintaining a top ten spot despite start with hard tires. As soon as the first few laps passed, these started to work perfectly and the Spanish driver showed a very promising pace.
His moment was to come later, when the drivers running on medium tires stopped in the pits, but bad luck came in the form of sebastian vettel accident on lap 22. All the drivers who were running on medium tires took the opportunity to switch to hard tires without losing time, but for Alonso it was too soon, as switching to medium would force him to complete 36 laps with them, something clearly unfeasible.
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«The truth is that you are speechless because we were doing a good race again. Our prediction was between sixth and seventh and the Safety Car came out, which brought everyone together. We couldn’t stop to put on the yellow ones (medium tyres) because it was too early”, explained Fernando Alonso.
From there, the Asturian had to swim against the current and stopped definitively in the pits to put the media on lap 40 as a result of the abandonment of Max Verstappen and the departure of the virtual safety car. yesentered the track in 14th position and with the hard task of having to climb positions to, at least, reach the points.
There was no way, well soon medium tires started to suffer graining and even Alonso had to make a second stop to finish the race. In the end, 17th and last in a race to forget.
“Another Safety Car (Virtual Safety Car) came out and we had to stop yes or yes, but it was too early to put the yellow ones anyway. And in the end out of the points, so the truth is that… without words, “Fernando Alonso reiterated.
Bad luck
Fernando Alonso takes stock of these first three races and cannot help but remember the misfortunes, as he considers that he has lost two great results that were more than possible due to pace and potential.
“I think it’s a matter of bad luck. In Jeddah we retired when we were sixth and today we would have easily done seventh. And without yesterday’s problem, maybe he could see that Max (Verstappen) retired, so losing these two results, because the truth is that it hurts, “Alonso admitted.
«But hey, you don’t have to think about it too much, you have to think about the next one. We’ve done three, there are 20 left, so We will have a lot, a lot of luck in one of those 20, I think »he concluded, hoping to achieve something big this year.
Source:
DAZN F1
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Photos: Alpine F1 Team