By passing Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso suffered his first home defeat of 2023, and produced Aston Martin’s weakest Sunday of the year. The Spaniard gave his opinion of both after the nod.
Fernando Alonso set himself the goal of making the top five at the Spanish Grand Prix after his failed qualifying attempt from ninth, while his boss secretly hoped they would have some chances on the podium as well. However, this was not the first time this year. For the first time in racing so far, Aston Martin didn’t even have the pace to fight for the top positions.
Alonso followed the tactic of soft and hard tyres, and already at the start of the race it looked like they were unable to keep up with Mercedes, but also with Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
The two-time world champion confirmed several times before they knew there would be competitions only for seventh and eighth place. Space would be the limit for them – that was just the case. Alonso soon caught up with Lance Stroll, who was third at the start of the race, but didn’t try to overtake him, so he took the green car to the finish line in seventh place.
It wasn’t the sixth day it was a bit of a personal decision. “Tell Lance not to worry, I’m just looking to build a little advantage on the way back.” Alonso asked the team for a few laps before the wave to calm his teammate down.
“I was ten or tenths better, I was riding newer tyres, but it wasn’t enough to get close to it.” He said about this Sky Sportsto.
“I broke a new floor board yesterday, and I didn’t want to break another today. And I didn’t want him to break one just because he was trying to defend himself. That’s why I told the guys we have the same two: sixth-seventh and seventh-sixth, so let’s bring it home.”
According to Alonso, the main problem was the speed of the car in Barcelona, which is why they could not achieve a better result. “We didn’t have the pace. We weren’t fast enough on the soft, we didn’t have the pace at the end on the hard. I don’t think it was about tactics – we weren’t fast enough today. We’ll see why that was. And we’re trying to be better.” for Canada.”
Fernando Alonso overtakes Esteban Ocon on lap 51 (Photo: Formula1/Twitter)The current 14 points was Aston Martin’s best this year, and Mercedes, who were celebrating their double podium, jumped into second place in the Constructors’ Championship. According to Alonso, it will be very difficult to compete with the stars who seem to have improved a lot.
“Yeah, they’re fast. And that’s a concern for us. It’s been like that all year. They have very balanced competitors. We have a very fast car, but it seems like we’re only getting points or having trouble with one car in the race. But they’re always there, so they’ll be opponents.” very strong
Praise Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
Perhaps the hottest moment in Alonso’s race was his overtaking Esteban Ocon, who appeared in the race. His former teammate pushed him hard against the pit wall on the finish line. But this time he did not criticize the French Spaniard, whom he had tasted so many times before. “I think it was good. Someone else asked that question, but I got ahead of Konoda, Susu and Esteban, and inside I felt the three were very similar.” – Defended the Alpine driver.
