Fernando Alonso finished ninth at the Miami GP, although he came to lap seventh after a masterful start in which he overtook three cars: Tsunoda, Norris and Hamilton. Fourth was Stroll, who did not start from the grid due to a fuel problem with the Aston Martins. The Asturian then explained to AS the key to such a profitable start with the Alpine: “I had a good start and then I chose to go on the outside in turn 1. I saw it in the ‘drivers parade’, it was the slowest in history, they stopped me at the end of the first corner for 20 seconds and thanks to that I verified that it had a lot of grip, that there were no remains or anything, that it was very good. So I decided that I could try it at the start, because everyone was braking very carefully on the inside and I gained positions on the outside.”
He had contact with Gasly in the second half of the race for which he had to serve a five-second penalty. Otherwise he would have finished eighth, but it was Ocon who won that position: “It was a tough race, I was very aggressive at the start and overtook four or five cars. I bumped into Lewis, but the car was fine, I was lucky. Then in the pit-stop I lost four seconds which I had to make up for against Gasly. Then I was very optimistic when I tried it against him and I touched him, I deserve the penalty five seconds because I braked too late. I was going to give him back the position but he was in the pit at the time so I had to serve the five seconds. The safety car didn’t help and I lost a couple of places, but ninth place at least tastes like something, we don’t have lucky points, we all work for them”.
