Fernando Alonso topped a rain-interrupted second practice session at the Canadian Grand Prix after Max Verstappen retired early with a power unit issue. Pit lane opened as scheduled for the second hour of practice, but dark clouds hung heavy over …
Fernando Alonso topped a rain-interrupted second practice session at the Canadian Grand Prix after Max Verstappen retired early with a power unit issue.
Pit lane opened as scheduled for the second hour of practice, but dark clouds hung heavy over the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as a gaggle driver headed onto the track on slicks to make up for lost time in FP1.
Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly were quick to set lap times, but others were reticent in the slippery, drizzly conditions. It took another 15 minutes for drivers to attempt to attack the circuit with any meaningful anger.
Gasly briefly took top spot from Hamilton before Alonso relieved him of position as conditions gradually began to improve.
Home favorite Lance Stroll briefly usurped his teammate, and Charles Leclerc then momentarily took the fastest time, but Alonso slammed on three purple laps when the track was at its driest to set the pace at 1m 15.810s.
The rain came down shortly after, halting running, and though drivers re-emerged in the final 15 minutes, the track was never dry enough again for the Spaniard’s time to come under threat, with all drivers stuck on intermediate tires to the finish.
George Russell emerged as Alonso’s closest challenge, his Mercedes 0.463s off the pace, with Stroll holding onto third and 0.654s adrift of his teammate.
Monaco Grand Prix winner Charles Leclerc was fourth, but his best lap, 0.746s off the pace, was set on the medium tire rather than softs.
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Leclerc ended the session under investigation for improper tire usage, with Ferrari appearing to have sent him onto the track with intermediate tires minutes before the circuit was declared wet by race control at the beginning of the hour.
Daniel Ricciardo completed the top five for RB ahead of Kevin Magnussen, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon and Sergio Perez down in 10th.
Esteban Ocon was 11th ahead of Logan Sargeant, Carlos Sainz, Valtteri Bottas, Nico Hulkenberg, Oscar Piastri and Zhou Guanyu, whose car had been repaired following his FP1 crash.
The limited representative running was good news for title leader Verstappen, who lasted only 25 minutes in the session before smoke began billowing from the back of his car. The team suspected an energy recovery issue and ordered him back to his garage, where the Dutchman had to leap from the car as a safety precaution to guard against potential electrocution in the case of a battery problem.
Red Bull Racing had furnished him with a brand-new power unit at the beginning of the day.
The problem left him anchored 18th in the order with only four unrepresentative laps.
Pierre Gasly ended the hour 19th ahead of Lando Norris in 20th, who will be investigated by the stewards for failing to use the escape road after running wide at the final chicane.
Fernando Alonso was left to rue a day “where everything went wrong” after crashing in FP3 and qualifying 19th for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Aston Martin were looking to reach Q3 with an upgraded car in Imola but had their preparations for …
Fernando Alonso was left to rue a day “where everything went wrong” after crashing in FP3 and qualifying 19th for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Aston Martin were looking to reach Q3 with an upgraded car in Imola but had their preparations for qualifying hit when Alonso spun at the final corner and hit the barrier. The damage required both car crews to work on Alonso’s car to get it ready in time for Q1, but then an unspecified issue led to him aborting his final attempt to advance and he was slowest of those to set a time before Logan Sargeant saw a lap deleted.
“One of those days that everything went wrong,” Alonso said. “Starting [with] FP3 obviously with a crash, quite heavy. The mechanics did a good job to make everything ready for Q1.
“And then in Q1, a combination of things, to be honest. We started with fuel for the whole session, just to give me a little bit of laps and practice. Just preparing some pit stops.
“I set the lap time at the very beginning when the car was heavy on fuel. Then when the car was light at the end and we put the last set of tires on, I had to box for an unknown problem. They called me [to] box, so it was quite painful.
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“I asked a few times [if they were sure they wanted me to box now]… I’m sorry for the mechanics because they deserve better after the job that they have done. But yeah, one of those days that everything goes in the wrong place.”
Alonso did at least feel that the Aston Martin upgrades were a step forward but believes the nature of the Imola circuit means he might struggle to show that pace on Sunday.
“The car felt a little bit faster this morning compared to yesterday before the crash. Now into qualifying the car also felt good. As I said, that lap is the first lap of the day for me on soft tires and heavy on fuel.
“I think there is a little bit of pace in hand. But yeah, the upgrades, I think the team is the one to analyze it and to comment on it. I think we have a lot of data from yesterday, especially FP1.
“Let’s see. I think Imola is one of the worst places to start at the back … it is the second most difficult circuit to overtake behind Monaco. Singapore ranks easier than [Imola] to overtake, so that tells everything. It’s going to be a tough race, but we should be able to learn something about the package.”
Fernando Alonso has claimed Spanish drivers are being treated differently by the FIA after a lack of a penalty for Lewis Hamilton at the Miami Grand Prix. Hamilton attacked Alonso down the inside of Turn 1 at the start of the sprint, arriving …
Fernando Alonso has claimed Spanish drivers are being treated differently by the FIA after a lack of a penalty for Lewis Hamilton at the Miami Grand Prix.
Hamilton attacked Alonso down the inside of Turn 1 at the start of the sprint, arriving quickly with Alonso having already made contact with teammate Lance Stroll just before the Mercedes pulled alongside. Stroll was then knocked into Lando Norris who was taken out of the race, and speaking after the Sprint had finished Alonso told Spanish broadcaster DAZN he expected the stewards to make a call based on nationality.
“I’m sure they won’t decide anything [against Hamilton] because he’s not Spanish,” Alonso said. “But I think he ruined a lot of people’s races, especially Norris — who has a very fast car.”
The stewards opted to take no further action, citing the three separate collisions as one of the factors in that decision.
“From the video evidence, it appeared that there were at least three collisions that occurred – the first between cars No. 14 (Alonso) and No. 18 (Stroll) and then between car No. 44 (Hamilton) and car No. 14 and finally between car No. 18 and car No. 4 (Norris).
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“While it appeared to us that the incidents began with cars No. 14 and No. 18, the sudden and fast arrival of car No. 44 contributed to the various collisions. However, we were not able to identify one or more drivers wholly or predominantly to blame for the various collisions or any one of them.
“Also keeping in mind that this was in Turn 1 of lap one where greater latitude is given to drivers for incidents, we took no further action.”
When that outcome was then put to Alonso after qualifying had finished, he maintained his stance that nationality plays a part in penalties.
“I have to open the gap because Hamilton was coming from the inside without control of the car, so if I do that for sure I get the penalty.
“I do feel that nationality matters, and I will speak with Mohammed [Ben Sulayem], with the FIA, whatever… I need to make sure there is not anything wrong with my nationality or anything that can influence any decision, not only for me also for the future generation of the Spanish drivers. They need to be protected.”
Fernando Alonso says Lewis Hamilton was not openly talking about driving for Ferrari being his dream until his move to Maranello was announced, but believes the Briton could be fighting for a championship with the team. Hamilton announced his …
Fernando Alonso says Lewis Hamilton was not openly talking about driving for Ferrari being his dream until his move to Maranello was announced, but believes the Briton could be fighting for a championship with the team.
Hamilton announced his decision to leave Mercedes for Ferrari at the start of this month, exercising a break clause to make the switch at the end of 2024. Alonso drove for Ferrari from 2010 until 2014, and says Hamilton will need to win to get the best experience with the team but also allowed himself to joke about claims he had always wanted to race for the Scuderia.
“It was not his childhood dream 12 months ago or two months ago, I guess, because it was a different dream,” Alonso said. “Nothing really to comment. I hope he enjoys the experience. I think it’s a very special team, but it is more special when you win. That’s the thing – you need to win, and it’s a few years already that they have a very fast car and they were fighting for big things, and maybe Lewis can bring that extra to fight for the championship.
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“As I said, the car is there. At the end of last year, even with a very dominant Red Bull car, Ferrari was still able to match the lap time and be faster than them in most of the [qualifying sessions]. I think the car should be fast enough.”
The Spaniard admits he was surprised by Hamilton’s switch because of how integrated at Mercedes the seven-time world champion has been.
“I didn’t spend too much time (on the news),” he said. “I was training…that day, so I missed all the stress from everybody. I was just one day late on the news. I don’t know, probably it was a surprise, I will not lie, but not because [of] the change itself. It was just because, from the outside, it seemed like he was very linked with Mercedes and very loyal to them and things like that.
“It was a little bit unexpected. I don’t know the reasons behind [it]. I don’t know anything, the stories, so it’s more a question for him. But yeah, I didn’t pay too much attention, and probably next week it’s going to be more of a theme because, still, one year ahead, I didn’t spend much time thinking.
Alonso eventually tired of speaking about Hamilton’s move, when the topic of big name engineers from rival teams – including Aston Martin – potentially joining him was brought up.
“Ummm, I don’t know. I have no info and I don’t care what Lewis Hamilton is doing.”
Aston Martin has launched its 2024 car ahead of its track debut during a shakedown at Silverstone on Monday. The AMR24 is the first car to be manufactured and assembled in Aston Martin’s new factory at its Silverstone headquarters, just across the …
Aston Martin has launched its 2024 car ahead of its track debut during a shakedown at Silverstone on Monday.
The AMR24 is the first car to be manufactured and assembled in Aston Martin’s new factory at its Silverstone headquarters, just across the road from the entrance to the British Grand Prix venue. With the car due on track Monday for its first running, Aston Martin has released imagery of the new design that technical director Dan Fallows says is an evolution of last year’s car.
“We’ve made changes all over the car,” Fallows said. “It’s very different in many ways. The majority of the parts have changed on it, but it is really still essentially a strong evolution of last year’s car. We have kind of built on the end of AMR23.
“The obvious things you’ll see that are different are things like the front nose and front wing. Bodywork will be different, but there’s also obviously quite a lot of stuff under the hood, which hopefully you won’t see [on track]. We will obviously try and keep some of that under wraps.
Renders on the AMR24. Published on February 12, 2024.
“The front suspension layout, that’s a similar layout to what we had on a AMR23 — a system of push rod. We’ve inherited new suspension from Mercedes — they obviously give us the gearbox and the structure of the rear suspension, so that has changed slightly from last year as well. There’s a change on the rear, but the front is very similar.”
The AMR24 comes following a breakthrough season for Aston Martin in 2023, with multiple podiums but also a period of struggle after the summer break. Fallows says there was crucial work done in the latter part of last year that has put the team in a stronger position with the new car.
“I think it’s no secret that we took a pragmatic approach to the end of last season,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we used every opportunity to really learn the lessons that we needed to learn on AMR23. We had, effectively, a glorified test session…in some of the races, but it was important for us to do that and we recognized that we needed to do something that was going to teach us lessons for 2024, and we did.
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“I think to come out of that having achieved good performances towards the end of the season, culminating at the podium in Brazil and fifth place, [was] a great result for us. To come out of that, and then to obviously have that momentum going into this year, I think that was the really key bit for us. Having been through that process and continuing that momentum into ‘24, I think gives us a lot of confidence going into the season.”
Fernando Alonso says it was easier to defend in some of his iconic 2005 races than against Sergio Perez late in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The two-time world champion famously held off Michael Schumacher for multiple laps at Imola in 2005 to win for …
Fernando Alonso says it was easier to defend in some of his iconic 2005 races than against Sergio Perez late in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion famously held off Michael Schumacher for multiple laps at Imola in 2005 to win for Renault, with the pair locked together for the latter stages of the race. At Interlagos, Alonso pulled off a similar feat against Perez before losing out starting the penultimate lap, only to re-pass the Red Bull and keep Perez at bay by 0.053s for third place.
“It was easier in 2005, because no DRS,” Alonso said. “That was probably easier. Now, with DRS…and yeah, things are a little bit different and you have to play things a little bit different as well. Tire management is also very different than back then, when you can maybe push the tire all the way.
“[Although] if in 2005 you lose the position, then it’s bye-bye, you cannot recover, and here I had another chance. It has been introduced to provide a little bit better show, and today is a good example of that. You get overtaken two laps to the end, then you have another chance, especially here in Brazil.
“We saw yesterday as well, when there is an overtaking done into Turn 1, there is a possibility — a strong possibility — into Turn 4 that someone will get it back, the position. That’s why we see some very nice battles and races always in Interlagos.
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“It has been a spectacular weekend as always here in Brazil. Sometimes it’s the weather providing this great show. I think this weekend, without any rain or any weather, we saw incredible races. There is something in this track that gives a perfect opportunity for Formula 1 to shine, and it was nice.”
Alonso says the key to his success against Perez was to keep the Red Bull driver facing dirty air from the Aston Martin as often as possible.
“It was a very intense race. There was no time to relax, a very strategic race as well, saving the tires, saving the battery always in case you needed on a DRS opportunity for Checo.
“Honestly I thought that I had things under control in the last stint, until maybe five laps to the end where I started pushing a bit more. I had more juice in the tires and I thought everything was fine. Then Checo was playing the same game. He had a good tire at the end of the race. He overtook me two laps to the end, and I thought, ‘OK, it’s gone.’ Then I had one more chance, and it was enough.
“I think when you run just in front of another car, you have better downforce, you have clean air. That was maybe good for me in terms of tire management, and he was struggling a little bit to go into Turn 10, 11 and 12 behind another car. That was the game we were playing; those three corners were crucial for an overtaking opportunity. Being the car in front, maybe you have better grip always.”
Fernando Alonso believes his clash with Esteban Ocon cost him a chance of points in the Sprint, but Aston Martin’s pace bodes well for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Ocon was on a flying lap and passing Alonso – on a slow lap and to the outside of the …
Fernando Alonso believes his clash with Esteban Ocon cost him a chance of points in the Sprint, but Aston Martin’s pace bodes well for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Ocon was on a flying lap and passing Alonso — on a slow lap and to the outside of the track — at Turn 3 when the Frenchman had a snap of oversteer. The correction saw him run wide and hit Alonso’s front left wheel, causing Ocon to crash heavily and damaging the Aston Martin to the extent it couldn’t run again after the end of SQ1.
Starting the Sprint from 15th, Alonso climbed to 11th with some strong overtakes and says it shows more was possible with a clean day.
“Yes, it was [frustrating] because I think we had good pace,” Alonso said. “Now in the race, we saw that we were fast, so we lost a possibility to score a few points. But it is [what] it is. Better that it happened today and not in the main qualifying yesterday. So let’s see tomorrow in the race if we’re going to score big points.”
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The stewards investigated the Sprint Shootout collision and opted to take no further action against either driver, with Alonso feeling both were unlucky.
“I don’t think it could go either way,” the Spaniard said. “I think he lost the car, and unfortunately I was in the wrong place in the wrong moment. But without losing the car, you never go there. But you know, this is the way it is.”
While Alonso is confident the pace shown on Saturday bodes well for Sunday’s grand prix when he will start fourth behind teammate Lance Stroll, he says the psychological boost for Aston Martin could be just as important regardless of the weekend’s final result.
“It was promising,” he said. “Definitely we have to execute a good race tomorrow without any mistakes. Hopefully a good start with the strategy, and we can go through the first couple of laps without any incident, then let’s see the pace. If it’s enough to finish in the top five, top six, whatever, we will take it.
“I think especially after this race we have some kind of relief, some weight off the shoulders of some people, and going into the right direction is a good boost for everyone in the factory. We really needed this type of performance here in Brazil.
“If we had another weekend struggling, maybe that was a little bit worrying, but we always kept pragmatic and doing some tests, some experiments, even if they were painful, and hopefully we have a lot of data now to analyze everything.”
Fernando Alonso says a “terrible session” of practice on Friday set the scene for his first Q1 exit of the season at the United States Grand Prix. Aston Martin brought an upgrade package to Austin but struggled in FP1, with Lance Stroll’s session …
Fernando Alonso says a “terrible session” of practice on Friday set the scene for his first Q1 exit of the season at the United States Grand Prix.
Aston Martin brought an upgrade package to Austin but struggled in FP1, with Lance Stroll’s session ending after just five laps with a front left brake issue and Alonso also limited to the next-lowest total of 19. After being eliminated in 17th place in qualifying — two places ahead of Stroll — Alonso said it was simply the best he could get out of the car with the setup he had.
“No, it was the maximum,” Alonso said. “The lap was not ideal — the out lap, especially the traffic, was very bad to manage. I think I crossed the line within 1s of the limit so I started the lap too close to the cars in front. That didn’t help, but that lap felt OK and the pace was maybe not good enough to get into Q2. Let’s see tomorrow if we can do a good Sprint because Sunday’s race is heavily compromised now.”
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Alonso admits he has limited feeling with the upgraded car as a result of the issues he faced in FP1, while Stroll was also unable to offer up any relevant data.
“We should go back and complete the day completely. Starting from the morning we had a terrible session. Lance didn’t complete any laps [and] I only did six or seven quality laps with the new package. Too many unknowns in terms of how to operate the package and the new car, so I think we went a little bit blind into qualifying and obviously we see the result.
“Nothing we can do now; we are in parc ferme. We use these weekends as a test for next year as well, even if they are painful, so let’s see what we can learn in the remaining sessions.”
For Stroll, it was another Q1 exit but the Canadian was relatively content with his performance given the lack of running.
“It didn’t feel like it was a bad session,” Stroll said. “I actually felt like I was OK in the car and even after no running in FP1 I felt like I got to grips with the car pretty quickly, but we just weren’t quick enough.
“I was hoping for more for sure … There’s definitely opportunities here on Sunday so we will see what we can do.”
Red Bull’s performance this season has been magnificent, even allowing for the blip in Singapore a week before the team secured the constructors’ championship in Japan. With six rounds still remaining, it’s a new record – a stat that should not be …
Red Bull’s performance this season has been magnificent, even allowing for the blip in Singapore a week before the team secured the constructors’ championship in Japan.
With six rounds still remaining, it’s a new record — a stat that should not be downplayed simply because there are more races per season now. Three of those six events feature sprints that combine to offer more than another race’s worth of points.
But that championship success was a foregone conclusion as early as the fourth race of the season as Red Bull showed itself to be strong on every type of venue. That storyline has been shut down, but there are two hugely entertaining fights — for different reasons — just behind them.
Neither of the two teams fighting for second place in the constructors’ standings this season will have had that target in mind when they entered the year. Mercedes and Ferrari both harbored hopes of putting up a challenge to Red Bull and entering the frame for top honors.
Last season played out in a similar season way, with the two were fighting for second overall right up until the final round.
It was a different dynamic in 2022, though. Ferrari had started the season with arguably the quickest car, and certainly a race-winning one that secured a one-two in Bahrain. The Scuderia was seen as a championship contender early on. Mercedes, meanwhile, was in real trouble with the new regulations and took a long time to become competitive, but there was a one-two of its own when George Russell took his first win in Brazil.
The impression was Ferrari had performed poorly as it slipped away from Red Bull and only just managed to hang onto second place, while Mercedes showed encouraging development to get into that fight.
This year it’s been much more balanced, but if anything the roles are slightly reversed. Although Ferrari was quick in Bahrain, Mercedes appeared the more consistent of the two, regularly being third quickest while others fluctuated around it.
That the gap had opened up to as much as 56 points over Ferrari by the summer break suggested P2 would be a formality, but consistency now belongs to the Scuderia, which has delivered a very solid run from Monza onwards. Across very different types of circuit, that bodes well for it to be a tussle right to Abu Dhabi.
Should you care? Well, Mercedes does, not only because of pride and the spirit of competition, but because of the way learning from these kinds of pressure situations can set a team up for the ultimate prize in the future.
“We definitely want to beat them, and they’ll want to beat us,” Andrew Shovlin said of Ferrari. “Second place is not a world championship, and if we win it we aren’t going to be as crazy as Red Bull are right now, but it is important for us and everyone at the factory wants to achieve that.
“It’s also actually quite good practice, because we haven’t been fighting for a championship for a couple of years, and in our sense we’ve got two cars that are closely matched. We’ve got a very small margin, we’ve got some difficult tracks and some new circuits coming up, and it’s actually quite good for us to just get back into that mindset of racing for championships — there’s only so many points on the table, making sure you can grab as many of them as possible.
“The team is enjoying that challenge. You saw in Singapore how quickly the team gets back into that mindset of aggressively racing for a race win. Certainly we’ll do everything we can and push as hard as we can to get second.”
Earlier this season you’d have certainly expected Aston Martin to be one of the teams Mercedes was talking about too, but the impressive development rates from the teams around it has led to AMR slipping ever further back. Its haul of four points from the last two races have coincided with a return of 57 for McLaren, and that only scratches the surface of that dynamic.
In the first eight races, McLaren scored just 17 points and looked a world away from the front-running teams. Then came the Austria upgrade, and in the eight races since — the same sample set — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have amassed 155 points between them. That’s nearly a 10-fold increase in scoring.
Not every weekend will be as lucrative as Japan, but the fact Norris has scored four second-place finishes in the past seven races suggests there will be more big scores, and with Piastri also regularly contributing, the gap is closing rapidly. If it keeps up the pace at which it has been outscoring Aston Martin since Austria — 11 points per round — McLaren will have moved up to fourth and hold a six-point advantage heading to Abu Dhabi.
Alonso’s spirited efforts continue to keep Aston Martin at the sharp end, adding an x-factor to McLaren’s second-half comeback. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
But that overlooks the impact of Fernando Alonso, who pulled off another stunning start in Japan and felt more points were on the table than his eventual eighth place had the strategy been different. The Spaniard retains a habit of dragging cars into positions they sometimes don’t deserve to be, and with the buffer Aston Martin still has, he could slow McLaren’s progress with one or two more such performances in the remaining six rounds.
It’s also still the same team that developed the car that was so strong out of the box, and the timing of when it has scored its points shouldn’t detract from the strong overall step forward Aston Martin has made in terms of a season’s worth of points. If any of its upgrades that are still planned for this season have even 10% of the impact its winter development did, Aston will give itself a good chance of holding on.
One is a titanic battle on track where two drivers are locked within a second of each other throughout, the other completely opposing strategies that are converging towards the final lap and promising a mouth-watering conclusion.
Sure, it’s not for a title, but it’s still damn fun to watch.
Lance Stroll says his huge crash in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix was a result of him taking extra risk at the end of a lap compromised by cold tires. The Aston Martin driver was on his final lap of Q1 when he had a snap of oversteer on …
Lance Stroll says his huge crash in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix was a result of him taking extra risk at the end of a lap compromised by cold tires.
The Aston Martin driver was on his final lap of Q1 when he had a snap of oversteer on the exit of the final corner, overcorrecting and hitting the barrier heavily at around 150mph. The car was severely damaged in the incident, with the front left corner ripping off and rolling across the track in front of Lando Norris, and Stroll says he was aware he was set to be eliminated so took more risk trying to find the required lap time.
“I’m OK,” Stroll said. “I’m frustrated as we have a big job — in the garage and on the racetrack — ahead of us. I was struggling for grip throughout the qualifying session. We had a bad out-lap with traffic ahead of my final push and we got stopped for the weigh bridge.
“I started a couple of seconds behind Pierre (Gasly), so it didn’t play out the way we’d planned. When I saw my lap wasn’t improving, I pushed really hard in the last corner to try and make up that extra time, and that’s when it went wrong. Let’s see what we can salvage tomorrow in the race.”
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With Stroll receiving the all-clear from the FIA medical center, team principal Mike Krack says the fact he wasn’t injured in such a heavy impact shows the safety levels that F1 has achieved.
“The only thing that matters today is that Lance is OK after the accident in qualifying,” Krack said. “To see him step out of the car unaided is a testament to the FIA’s constant work to improve safety. After some precautionary checks in the medical center, he was cleared and released.”
