Fernando Alonso reached the classification of the Bahrain Grand Prix with the aim of reaching Q3, as he himself recognized throughout the weekend. The Alpine rider could only finish 16th in the last free practice sessions, although it seemed that they were hiding their real potential, as his teammate also finished at the bottom of the table and neither rode the soft compound.
When the moment of truth arrived, the Spaniard achieved the goal he set for himself, that of moving on to the final round on Saturday. With a single attempt on the soft tyres, he set his final 1m32.195s, which placed him in eighth position.
The two-time champion was more than a second and a half behind the fastest driver of the day, Charles Leclerc, who will start from first place in Sunday’s race, but he was satisfied with the result: “I’m happy, because obviously after the winter you don’t know where the yields of the cars are”.
“You can have negative or positive surprises, and I think that fighting for the top ten is a relief for Alpine,” Alonso continued. “The work done during the winter has been positive and now the key will be to develop the car as soon as possible, because there will be a lot of development from everyone, we also need to be fast on the circuit.”
The Spaniard will be ahead of one of the Mercedes, that of George Russell, although behind Valtteri Bottas’s Alfa Romeo and Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, so it is confirmed that the change in regulations has fulfilled, in principle, what F1 was marked, change the order of the grid.
“We need to hit the button at the factory to try to bring new things to the circuit as soon as possible, but it’s the same for everyone,” said the two-time champion. “With the new cars we will see big changes in the first two months, and we need to work to close that gap we have over the leaders, which is more than a second.
The Spaniard will face several rivals who were not at Alpine’s level last year: “Haas seems to have made good decisions, and the Ferrari engine is also very powerful this year. It is a team that usually starts very strong, but It doesn’t bring many updates throughout the year, so I’m optimistic that we can beat a couple of the teams that are ahead of us on performance.”
The modifications in the technical regulations have made this first vibrant classification live, but until Sunday’s race it will not be known if the changes have been positive to increase the fights on the track: “I think it’s easier to follow, I don’t know if there will be more action or not on the track, but what will be talked about tomorrow is degradation, which is very high when you are behind a car, so we will see.
“The first two laps will be interesting because it will be the first time that we will all be together in a real way, with heavier cars and a lot of mistakes, so I hope we have a clean race and that we learn from what happens tomorrow,” Alonso acknowledged. .
“I feel the car well when I’m driving, but the Ferrari feels better. I haven’t had much porpoising, but it’s a mystery to everyone, we hope to be there tomorrow,” he said.
The FIA has also published the report of what happened at the end of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in addition to clarifying that the track limits will be marked by the white line, something that did not happen with the previous race director, Michael Masi . .
“It has been black or white, everything is clear with what we can do or not, and we like that, so they are the same rules for everyone. The races will be different, incidents will continue to happen in the first laps that will have to be judged in time real, and we need his help, just as he needs ours,” Alonso said about the new decisions of the highest body.
