Fernando Alonso is, along with Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel, one of the champion drivers who have been proclaimed winners of the Monaco GP on at least one occasion, a feat that this weekend will be far away for the #14.
After making a notorious comeback in his home Grand Prix from the bottom of the grid to 9th position, the best result he has achieved so far in the 2022 season, Fernando Alonso arrives at the Monaco GP with the intention of take advantage of the good performance that Alpine usually shows on Saturdays in qualifying.
Or at least he used to, since in Spain neither he nor Esteban Ocon succeeded in passing to the Q3 after achieving it, at least with one of the two single-seaters of the French team, often in the first stages of the year.
go for all
13th in the morning free practice session and 8th in the afternoon, in both cases 1.2 seconds behind pole position Alonso always considers that Monaco, where he already won in 2006 and 2007 with Renault and McLaren respectively, occupies an exceptional place in the ‘Great Circus’ calendar.
«Monaco is always different from other circuits, since you have to feel comfortable in the car, “said the man from Oviedo. “Free Practice 1 was a bit tricky for us, but in Free Practice 2 we started to fine-tune the car. There is still more to come as we have experienced a inconsistent balance here and there that we have to fix, as well as trying to understand the tires a bit better for qualifying.”
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Although the pace of the Alpine A522 at one lap has tended to be one of the strong points of the French single-seater until now, the tire degradation stands on the opposite side of the scale in this case.
Pirelli has chosen to go to the Principality with the hardest compounds in its range, a circuit in which one stop tends to be enough if there are no red flags or Safety Cars in the Sunday procession, where Saturday counts more than any other weekend of the year.
“Getting a good grid position is obviously the main thing of the weekend”
“Getting a good grid position is obviously the main thing of the weekend. There is more work to be done, but it’s always special to drive here with so much adrenaline in one lap», Alonso concluded.
For its part, Pat Fry, technical director of the French team, acknowledged that they still have to play a little more with the settings to get their entire duo to qualify and race with a single-seater capable of responding to what each driver asks of it. «Fernando was slightly happier with his car today than Esteban,” he added.