After a bittersweet qualifying for the Spanish driver, as he failed to get into Q3 by a difference of only 32 thousandths compared to the tenth fastest time in Q2, Alonso was ready to come back and try to score some points at the 2022 Miami GP , but after two penalties, he stayed just outside the top 10.
Before starting the race, the Spaniard had already gained a position thanks to the Aston Martin problem that forced Lance Stroll (and his teammate Vettel ) to start from the pitlane . At the start, Alonso showed that his talent is still intact and placed seventh after a battle with Lewis Hamilton that came very close to ending the race for both drivers.
After that good moment, the Alpine driver’s career began to decline, fighting most of it for the points with slower drivers a priori. After the halfway point of the session, Alonso tried to overtake Gasly and, despite succeeding, received a five-second penalty for touching the French driver from behind. Said contact caused a puncture in Gasly ‘s AlphaTauri that ended up triggering another contact with Lando Norris and the exit of the Safety Car to the track.
Although he crossed the finish line in ninth position, adding the five-second penalty, he later received another five-second penalty for gaining an advantage off the track and fell to 11th position, outside the points zone.
As soon as he got out of his car, the Asturian spoke before the DAZN F1 microphones about his incident with the AlphaTauri driver and assumed the blame, as well as the sanction received.
“I think it’s fair. I braked a little too late, blocked and went into him, so I understand the penalty. My fault and well, I couldn’t get him back in position because I was already out of the race, so the five seconds is fair. “.
Regarding the race, Alonso was satisfied with having been able to score two points (which he later lost), but explained that luck continues to turn its back on them at the start of 2022.
“The truth is that the race has been quite active, at least where I was. I had a good start, I took a lot of risks in the first corner, I touched with Hamilton, but we gained a lot of positions”.
“Then I touched Gasly and they penalized me, I lost five seconds, I had a bad save and I lost another four seconds, so I was always on the wrong foot, always on the attack, so in the end scoring some points is fair and deserved ( he lost them after the race)”.
“I think luck continues to elude us, because Russell , Ocon , Albon and people who were further back, had the Safety Car just at the ideal time to finish in front of us again, so hopefully that will happen to us one day, “he concluded. Alpine ‘s.
