Fernando Alonso believes there will be some surprises later in the season as the field closed in noticeably on Red Bull during qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen led a front-row lock-out for Red Bull with teammate Sergio Perez in second place and Lando Norris third, but 0.586s covered the top eight drivers from five different teams. Verstappen finished last season’s race at Suzuka 0.581s clear of the car in second, and Alonso – who was fifth in qualifying on Saturday – says it bodes well for circuits where qualifying is even more crucial.
“I think in qualifying it’s true that everything is so close,” Alonso said. “We saw Nico [Hulkenberg] and Valtteri [Bottas] today, they were three tenths away or something, which is incredible. Then in the race you see the real pace of the cars.
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“This is something we are struggling with a little bit as well – we are very competitive on Saturday and not so much on Sunday – so our true pace I think is the Sunday’s pace. On Saturday, I think because of the grip of the tires, because of everything maybe you mask some of the problems. So it’s very tight, it’s going to be interesting in Monaco and some other circuits where qualifying is everything and we will see surprises.”
Alonso was running an update during qualifying that Aston Martin first trialled on Lance Stroll’s car on Friday, and he says the step forward between October’s race and this weekend in Japan is clear to see.
“I think the team is analyzing everything now. Yesterday I had the old package, today the new package, so I guess tonight we will have the data to confirm that and to quantify the improvement, but everything felt good in the qualifying. A little bit unexpected to be that competitive to be honest. Just a couple of hundredths from Ferrari, [Charles] Leclerc behind us, [Oscar] Piastri behind us, and Mercedes.
“When we were here six months ago, 1.5 seconds from pole position and now we are four tenths, so definitely we are moving in the right direction.”
Despite the progress, Alonso believes he might have a tough race ahead of him after qualifying in the top five, given the trend of Aston Martin being less competitive over a longer run.
“I tend to be conservative on my guesses and predictions, and looking back at the first three races we are very strong on Saturday and not so strong on Sunday. We are maybe out of position being top five, so if I get overtaken by Oscar and the two Mercedes or something like that I would guess this is normal and we will fall back into our position. Let’s see what we can do, I’m very open to whatever the race brings to us. I’m extremely proud and happy of today’s job, and tomorrow is another day.”