With the track littered with the remains of Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso radioed the team if Michael Masi was listening to his comments while requesting a new Safety Car or a similar measure.
The podium by Fernando Alonso in Qatar rekindled the hopes of a two-time world champion who had not finished in the top three since Hungary 2014, precisely the setting in which in 2021 his teammate reaped the first victory in Alpine history after he retained Lewis Hamilton for several rounds of heart attack.
However, the French team Hasn’t found the rhythm all weekend of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, at least when it comes to his car. “It was very difficult to drive and we don’t know why,” Alonso said after seeing first-hand that the changes made to his A521 had not had the desired effect.
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Despite a great start that was at least once that his direct rivals began to find a rhythm, unlike him, # 14’s biggest battle in Jeddah was against Michael Masi: after applying the red flag previously, and with the track full of remains of Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin, apply ‘only’ a Virtual Safety Car under these conditions he angered the Asturian.
«We started well and then, on lap 9, logically a Safety Car and some of us got it, some we didn’t», Alonso commented on the first bars of the race. «Each team more or less made a car yes a car no, to see if one of them was expensive, and We had a cross again. Of course not!».
All to a letter
29 points separate Alpine from AlphaTauri in the constructors’ championship with only one race left after Tsunoda’s debacle made up for his misfortune, while Esteban Ocon lost the podium to Valtteri Bottas by just 102 thousandths.
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The combination of events left him out of the game, but Alonso is only thinking about closing the season at the top in Abu Dhabi. «With the red flag that they put up afterwards, the race was over. We were P15, with the same strategy all, there were no more stops to make. The truth is that it was a tough stick. Trying to come back, trying to get closer to other cars, a spin too … I lost the car in the fast corner, so it was a pretty ugly Sunday. You have to do a reset and starting tomorrow focus on Abu Dhabi, because today is a bit disappointing“, Hill.