The Spanish pilot premiered the new specification of the soil in the Alpine, so he had all the responsibility in his hands. In qualifying he achieved a valuable fifth position, so it was not so unrealistic to dream of collecting a good number of points in the first sprint race of the 2022 season, but everything went wrong before the start itself.
On the formation lap, the A522 didn’t start as it should, and Fernando Alonso was left behind, so he had to make a much faster turn than normal to get back to where he started.
The Spaniard was able to recover what he had lost before the traffic lights went out, but when the scheduled 21-lap test began, he was overtaken by Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren and Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull.
Shortly after, he lost more pace and gave up the position to Carlos Sainz at Tamburello on lap 7, even before the DRS was activated. Shortly after the end, he lost the ideal line in the last corner, and Valtteri Bottas took the opportunity to snatch the last place that awarded points this Saturday.
The two-time world champion spoke after getting out of the car and commented on his feelings: “A little disappointed today, we started 5th and we finished 9th, so we went back a bit, but we had no rhythm today”.
“We had problems on the formation lap and then on the main start, so we have to look into it,” he explained of getting stuck before starting. “But I think we didn’t have the pace. With Perez and Sainz being so quick and stuck behind us, we knew realistically we could finish 7th from 5th.”
“The tires have also run out very quickly in the race, it has happened to us once again, so we have to continue to understand this,” he told DAZN F1 microphones. “We didn’t have the pace, so I’m a bit disappointed. We’ve lost some points, because finishing 6th or 7th, some points were up to you, but the real race is tomorrow, so we’re going to try and focus.”
Alonso does not want to give up, and despite falling four positions, he has his sights set on Sunday, where more points are distributed: “There is some forecast of rain, and let’s see if we can take advantage of that. We have had changing conditions all weekend of the week, today has been quite constant, but tomorrow it can change again, and as I say, the race is tomorrow”.
“Today was like Q4, as I sometimes call it, so we’ve gone backwards, and tomorrow we’ll see how it goes,” said the man from Oviedo.
