Alonso looks at the top-5 at the Circuit, because… “If we finish on the podium starting ninth, we smoke a good cigar”, jokes the Asturian. Qualifying was not good, the damage suffered by the Aston Martin on its flat bottom after going off the track in Q1 took away benefits that it paid for throughout the session. In Q3, he said goodbye to the top-4 with a braking pass at turn 10. In any case, there is room for improvement this Sunday, he told AS: “In the race it will not affect anything because everything can be changed, they are always crashing all in Q3 and they go out with the new car on Sunday, so we will repair it with care tonight. In qualifying I asked several times how many tenths it cost us and they didn’t want to tell me, so I suppose there would be damage down there”.
“But even so the car was going well, and in Q3, with only one set of tyres, I was coming to do a 1:12.7 until turn 10, but then I over-braked and lost everything. We would have been between the second and the fourth, so there is potential in the car when we get everything ready in the race. Let’s see if we can overtake with the new curves at the end, and see how Checo (Pérez), George (Russell) or Leclerc arrive from behind”, he explained to this medium.
“It’s more painful because it wasn’t even a fast lap”
On his incident: “It was on the exit lap of Q1. It wasn’t even a fast lap. That’s why it’s more painful, but it is what it is. I had to touch the wet part, I left and when you go through the gravel, in these curves of 200 kilometers per hour, you damage the ground a lot and from there we go with the changed foot”.
And about what the race could be like in this Spanish GP: “Here there is a lot of degradation, overtaking comes because one has younger tires than others. With this car, the top-5 has to be a real and possible goal, but you have to do it and everything has to go well”. “A bit of rain improves the chances of coming back. Or the changes, that one puts intermediate, that another stays dry… when you throw the lucky dice. It is difficult if you are in front, you want to tie the result, but when you are behind you can be more daring. If there is chaos tomorrow, we will try to risk a little more. And if it doesn’t rain, we’ll try to have a good race. There are 66 laps and degradation has been our strong point ”, he closes.