Weekends in Formula 1 can be very chaotic, and three days of Grand Prix go a long way. And if not, ask Fernando Alonso, who had an appointment in Austria full of ups and downs. The Asturian driver arrived at the Red Bull Ring with the intention of continuing with the form of the last races, where he scored points on five consecutive occasions, but at the time of qualifying, his options went to waste.
The Alpine’s performance seemed to be quite strong on Friday, and in the decisive round that decided the positions on the grid for the sprint race, damage to the bottom of the A522 caused by aggressive curbs, left it in ninth place [eighth after the sanction against Sergio Pérez].
If that was already bad luck for the man from Oviedo, although it is true that it is the driver who decides whether to attack the curbs to the limit, when the traffic lights were going to go out on the formation lap of Saturday’s sprint test, his car he lost power due to an alleged electrical problem, which meant that he was unable to start and, as a consequence, had to start Sunday’s main event from the bottom of the grid.
From 19th place, just ahead of Valtteri Bottas, who was serving a penalty for changing elements in his engine starting from the pitlane, the man from Oviedo gradually recovered positions until reaching fifth place. Once there, he stopped to set up a game of hardballs, although the safety car caused by the fire in Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari opened the window for him to make an additional stop and put in the midfielders.
That was when he received another blow when he suffered a bad stop from Alpine, leaving a misplaced wheel, which led him to spend a single lap later through the pitlane to tighten the tire. From there, he dropped to 14th, and rallied at a devilish pace to finish in the points zone, passing Bottas, Alexander Albon, Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly.
The data has revealed that his times were among the best on the Austrian track in the closing moments, where he posted the third fastest lap overall, a 1m08.558s , on lap 62. The F1Techy post showed each driver’s pace in a points graph, where you could see that only Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc surpassed him, although at certain moments he was faster than the winning Ferrari.
Fernando Alonso showed that he had great speed in Austria, and he wanted to share it on his social networks, adding some emoticons with a bicep, showing that he is still one of the best and most prepared on the current grid.
Little mattered to him having to break through his rivals with overtaking, which, if not done with good preparation, the most logical thing is to lose time, which did not happen to the Spaniard.
