After a very positive Friday in terms of results for Alpine and especially Fernando Alonso, everything seemed to indicate that his home Grand Prix could be the event that would put an end to his losing streak, but against all odds, the situation changed from Saturday morning.
The results of FP3 were a warning of what was going to happen a few hours later, with a very compact middle zone and an Alpine that did not leave a good feeling, something that was confirmed in the qualifying session.
The Asturian driver’s first lap of Q1 left him one tenth behind his teammate and just over a second off Charles Leclerc’s best time, at the limit of the qualifying zone for Q2.
However, when trying to get the best out of the car, Alonso was hampered by traffic after a somewhat dubious management, coming out on track from the last when it was obvious that they could not risk it, so he was forced to abort. their return, depending on what their rivals did in their last attempts.
Unfortunately for the Spanish driver, several drivers improved and he fell to 17th place, behind only Lance Stroll, Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi, being eliminated in the first of the three qualifying rounds of the Spanish Grand Prix, also complicating the race before his fans.
As soon as he got off his A522, Alonso explained what happened on his last lap of Q1, which he couldn’t even complete due to a traffic problem.
“There was a lot of traffic in the pitlane and then we were all a bit on the time limit because the session was over. I also didn’t get much information from the engineer, there was a bit of a misunderstanding about how much time was left in the session.
“I thought we were at the limit, within a second of being able to cross the finish line [to start the fastest lap], but there was about 20 seconds [of margin]. We started behind Lando [Norris] trying to get into the lap and the truth is that it was It’s all a misunderstanding,” he added.
The Spaniard also wanted to explain his lack of pace and revealed that Alpine ‘s novelties for this Spanish GP are mounted on Esteban Ocon’s car and not on his.
“But as I say, the day was weird from the morning in FP3, we have some different car parts [compared to Ocon], this weekend it was my teammate’s turn and I think it was noticeable today that I was missing a bit of pace”, concluded Fernando Alonso , who will start 17th tomorrow.
