Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin can take great encouragement from the fact he nearly finished on the podium in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite feeling the team had a bad weekend, Sergio Perez led home a Red Bull one-two in a race where the two …
Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin can take great encouragement from the fact he nearly finished on the podium in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite feeling the team had a bad weekend,
Sergio Perez led home a Red Bull one-two in a race where the two leaders were pushing, leaving Alonso to fight it out with polesitter Charles Leclerc for third place. Leclerc held on by a second on the final lap to end Alonso’s run of consecutive podiums but given how well Ferrari’s weekend panned out the Spaniard says it’s a further statement from Aston to be so close in the race.
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“Yeah it was very good, I’m very happy with the result and the pace of the car,” Alonso said. “I think the weekend was not maybe as competitive as the first three races but even with that I think in the race the car pace was very good, very strong, and we challenged for the podium. Only one second to Charles, so that’s very encouraging for us.
“On let’s say a bad weekend from Aston we are fighting for the podium against one of the best weekends for Ferrari – they were on pole position for the Sprint race, pole position for the main race, and they were just one second in front of us on Sunday, so good news.”
In a race where there was little in the way of action, Alonso did provide a highlight when overtaking Carlos Sainz into Turn 4 – not a traditional passing spot – after the early safety car.
“I had a lot of grip on that restart so I could have him probably in Turn 3 already but then it was into Turn 4. I don’t know, no clear explanation but the car was working really well.
“It was good. It was crucial because to overtake the Ferraris is never easy, so that overtake put me in a train with Charles and the race was easier after that.”
After suffering DRS issues earlier in the weekend, Alonso says he had no such problems during Sunday’s race but, despite the pass on Sainz, he feels his cause wasn’t helped by the timing of that safety car negating Aston Martin’s advantage over Leclerc.
“(DRS) worked, a lot of speed! I’ve never been that fast on the straight for the whole weekend! So I was happy with everything on the car.
“The strength of the car for whatever reason is still the tire degradation that seems a little bit better than the others, unfortunately with the safety car we all put on the hard tires and that tire was very robust until the end. Without that safety car I think the Ferraris were struggling a lot in the first stint, so maybe Miami is a better chance for us.”
Longstanding FIA WEC driver Paul Dalla Lana, who has competed with Aston Martin in the championship each year since 2013, has decided to retire from racing with immediate effect. The 57-year-old Canadian, who had competed in the opening FIA WEC …
Longstanding FIA WEC driver Paul Dalla Lana, who has competed with Aston Martin in the championship each year since 2013, has decided to retire from racing with immediate effect.
The 57-year-old Canadian, who had competed in the opening FIA WEC rounds of this season at Sebring and Portimao in the GTE Am class No. 98 Northwest AMR Vantage with Nicki Thiim and Axcil Jefferies, will step away from the championship before this weekend’s 6 Hours of Spa and shift his focus to his business interests.
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As a result of Dalla Lana’s decision, the No. 98 entry will be taken over by reigning IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD class champion Heart of Racing. Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli are set to drive the car from this weekend’s race at Spa onwards.
Dalla Lana departs the FIA WEC as its most successful amateur driver, with 17 class victories, putting him fourth on the all-time winners’ list, behind Sebastian Buemi, Brendon Hartley and former teammate Pedro Lamy.
“To race for Aston Martin, compete at Le Mans and win a world championship title, has given me so many memories that I will cherish for the rest of my days,” he said. “But the racing always had to stop at some point, and for me, that time has been coming for a while now.
“It has become increasingly challenging to find enough time to prepare and compete at the highest level; and to fight for a world championship you must be able to give your all.
“I’ve been lucky enough to race alongside some great drivers and great friends and compete against the very best in sports car racing. I’ve been there as WEC has grown in stature and I’ve been able to drive the mighty V12, V8 and now the turbocharged V8 Vantages at places like Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans.
“It’s been one hell of ride and I’m very grateful to have been able to take it all on board an Aston Martin. Thanks to all the incredible fans that have come out to watch us over the years, and I’d like to wish Aston Martin luck in the future. I’m sure going to miss it!”
Dalla Lana is the WEC’s most successful amateur driver ever. Nick Dungan/Drew Gibson Photography/Aston Martin Racing
Huw Tasker, the AMR head of Partner Racing, paid tribute to Dalla Lana as part of the announcement, describing his racing career with the British marque as ‘outstanding’ and ‘legendary’.
“He is a legendary AMR driver and world champion, and the standards he has set as a ‘Bronze’ driver over more than 10 years of racing in WEC are unbelievable,” Tasker said. “We are unlikely to see anything like it again. To win 25% of all the races he contested in WEC is an amazing record, and to finish on the podium 37 times is equally astonishing.
“Aston Martin owes Paul a great debt of gratitude and we will miss his competitive drive and indubitable spirit inside the garage. On behalf of all of us at Aston Martin, thank you Paul, and congratulations on a fantastic career, you have done us all proud.
“We’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome Heart of Racing into the WEC paddock. The team has been doing a stellar job in IMSA for some time now, which was clearly shown by its victory in the Rolex 24 and IMSA GTD title, and we have every confidence that it can grow and develop to mirror those championship-winning achievements at world level.”
For Heart of Racing, this weekend’s FIA WEC race at Spa will be its first with a GTE-spec Vantage. The track time in Spa will be crucial in the build-up to its surprise Le Mans debut in June.
“The Heart of Racing team has had ambitions to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the FIA WEC for some time,” revealed Ian James. “We are an ambitious group and to add WEC to what we have been fortunate to achieve in our other programmes over the past three years is an honour.
“Going for the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona/24 Hours of Le Mans double is very exciting. I’d like to take the opportunity to wish Paul well in the future, and to thank him for giving us the chance to take over his entry for the rest of 2023. It will be a baptism of fire in Spa, but we hope to continue the successful heritage of the No. 98 plate in WEC.”
Due to the FIA WEC’s entry regulations, the Heart of Racing Aston Martin will compete under the Northwest AMR banner for the remaining rounds this season, and retain the number 98.
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack believes the lack of satisfaction from owner Lawrence Stroll brings clarity to what is required from his team rather than adds pressure. Fernando Alonso has finished on the podium in each of the opening three …
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack believes the lack of satisfaction from owner Lawrence Stroll brings clarity to what is required from his team rather than adds pressure.
Fernando Alonso has finished on the podium in each of the opening three race as Aston Martin enjoys a clear step forward compared to last season and is currently second in the constructors’ championship. Despite that, Krack (pictured at left, above) says Stroll’s approach is to focus on how far away the team is from winning races and championships and the German says it’s helpful for the team to have certainty over what is expected.
“It’s easy, Lawrence’s mission statement is very clear — he has not been having any delay in asking us, ‘When are we going to win the next one?’” Krack said. “Obviously he’s happy that we have made a step but this is not enough for his ambitions and the good thing is you know where you are standing — he wants more and we will have to deliver more.”
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Last year, Aston Martin impressively developed its car and closed the gap to other midfield teams after a poor start, but Krack says the strength of the front-running teams then prevents others from picking up too many points.
“In a cost cap environment with such intensity of racing you have to start with a good car, because to play catch-up all year, if you are down on points then it’s quite impossible. You could see there was not much to score, even if you had the fourth fastest car last year we were not scoring enough to make up for any gaps.
“So we have managed last year to develop the car substantially, now we start from a higher baseline, so it will be not as easy as it was last year but we have to make progress if we want to stay where we are, because if we don’t do anything we will go back. I am quite confident we can bring performance upgrades onto the car but because it’s relative, only time will tell if this is sufficient or not.”
Krack is confident in the direction Aston Martin is planning to take with its development plan, having analyzed the impact of certain changes to back up its decisions.
“We tried several small things to understand our car better before rushing into going in one direction or another one. I think we know roughly what we have to do and this is what has already started and what has been confirmed and will continue now.”
Aston Martin’s progress this season leaves the team “much more exposed” when it comes to having to deliver on its potential, according to team principal Mike Krack. Red Bull has a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field this season but …
Aston Martin’s progress this season leaves the team “much more exposed” when it comes to having to deliver on its potential, according to team principal Mike Krack.
Red Bull has a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field this season but Aston Martin has gone from seventh in the constructors’ championship last year to sit second after three podiums in the opening three races. Krack says much of his job is unchanged from the past but admits there is added pressure with racing the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari regularly.
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“It’s surprising, it’s not that different, because we have a very dedicated team that is always trying to achieve the maximum wherever they are,” Krack said. “So the approach is not that much different, but what you have is you are obviously much more exposed.
“I think if we make mistakes on pit stops or strategy, it is maybe spotted more than it potentially has been before. But apart from that the job itself is not very different. It’s easier to speak about three podiums than what we spoke about twelve months ago, that was very difficult!”
Krack likens the battle for second place as similar to the midfield in the past given how closely-matched the teams are, pointing out that external factors can impact which team is the nearest challenger to Red Bull at each race.
“I think everything is very, very close … You have this midfield where everything is basically one, two or three tenths (of a second) and I think it’s the same here with Ferrari and Mercedes. Depending on the circuit, depending on its layout, one has the upper hand maybe over someone else. What is clear is Red Bull is fastest.
“Three circuits with three different characteristics, and to be competitive in all three we are obviously confident that we can be on other circuits as well. But the range of circuits is very different, now you have Baku with a huge straight and then you have Monaco with no straight, so all these kinds of things will always shift the field a bit left and right.
“That’s why I am always saying we must be careful not to draw too many conclusions from one race event. And then also where you saw the strategy (in Australia) and how it played out and everyone has to manage you don’t get a representation of the pace. That’s why I’m always careful not to be too firm in the conclusions.”
Fernando Alonso believes the 2023 Formula 1 season is moving into a new phase that will see the order of the front-running teams change as more updates are introduced. Aston Martin has started the year with three consecutive podiums as Alonso …
Fernando Alonso believes the 2023 Formula 1 season is moving into a new phase that will see the order of the front-running teams change as more updates are introduced.
Aston Martin has started the year with three consecutive podiums as Alonso finished third in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia, but in the latest race Lewis Hamilton became the first non-Red Bull driver to beat the Spaniard. Alonso says that wasn’t a surprise given how closely matched Aston is with Mercedes, but he feels teams haven’t brought many developments so far and that the picture is set to evolve.
“I think Mercedes has also been strong in Jeddah, to be honest,” Alonso said. “All the race on Sunday I was within 0.1s of George (Russell) fighting to get this extra five seconds at the end, so it was very close.
“It seems that qualifying is quite important now because race pace is very similar, and I think now we enter into a part of the season which is going to be very interesting — which team is developing the car faster?
“I think the first three races being away from Europe it’s difficult to bring upgrades, but now on maybe we see the level of the teams changing a little bit race by race depending on who brings an upgrade good enough.”
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While Alonso admits expectations have been exceeded by Aston Martin so far given how strong its car is, he says there are other aspects that the team still needs to show it can match its rivals on this year.
“For us it’s happy days at the moment — we never expected to be on the podium maybe even throughout the season, and in three races we have three. So everything that comes now is a plus, and third and fourth is a lot of points so we took every opportunity.
“We need to learn and we need to grow as a team also maybe now off track, because we are racing against Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari — teams that are maybe used to this kind of pace of development and maybe we are on a learning process. So we take this 2023 in a very humble manner and let’s see how it goes.”
Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin had its most competitive qualifying session of the season at the Australian Grand Prix despite losing out to the Mercedes drivers and starting from fourth. Aston Martin has been the surprise package of 2023 so …
Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin had its most competitive qualifying session of the season at the Australian Grand Prix despite losing out to the Mercedes drivers and starting from fourth.
Aston Martin has been the surprise package of 2023 so far, with Alonso finishing on the podium in each of the first two races and sitting just 14 points off the championship lead. Having started on the front row in Saudi Arabia, he will line-up behind Max Verstappen, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton on Sunday in Melbourne but believes he was closer to pole than at any other venue.
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“The circuit was a little bit difficult to judge sometimes and especially the wind was changing in strength and direction, but I think it was quite a pretty normal qualifying for us, improving a little bit every session,” Alonso said.
“In terms of performance, arguably this was the best qualifying for us of the three, I think it’s the closest we’ve been to pole position. The car felt fast and easy to drive and I enjoyed it, so let’s see tomorrow what we can do. The Mercedes were very fast in Q3 and they did a better job but let’s see tomorrow if we can challenge them.”
Having seen both Mercedes drivers outqualify him — Russell a little over 0.2s off Verstappen — Alonso says he expected to be closely-matched but is focused on taking points out of Sergio Perez in the drivers’ standings with the Mexican starting from 20th.
“I think in Jeddah they were within 0.1s of the pace on Sunday to us. Here they were P2 yesterday I think Lewis… If you read their comments, sure, you think they have a car that is out of Q3 but I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s not as good as Red Bull — no one has a car close to Red Bull — but they are getting better and they will be a contender for wins soon.
“They did last year and they won a race after a very bad start, so I think this year they are also showing the potential that they have.
“But in our case, especially with Checo out in Q1 we will try to do a good race with no mistakes. If we can be on the podium great, if it’s P4 OK, if it’s P5 OK… We’ll try and score points and hopefully take points from him in the championship.”
Alonso believes his race target of finishing on the podium is on shared by three other teams given the performance shown so far at Albert Park.
“I started also in front of the Mercedes and they had very similar pace in Jeddah compared to me, so I think if they start in front it’s going to be very difficult to overtake them. So tomorrow I think the race is probably with the Red Bull, the two Mercedes and probably the Ferraris as well that are better here with these cooler conditions. So it’s going to be an interesting race.”
Fernando Alonso topped a rain-affected second practice session at the Australian Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. After a sunny and reasonably warm first practice hour, Melbourne turned cool and overcast in time for the final session, …
Fernando Alonso topped a rain-affected second practice session at the Australian Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
After a sunny and reasonably warm first practice hour, Melbourne turned cool and overcast in time for the final session, and light rain drops as pit lane opened made clear the threat of rain.
The ambient temperature was just 61 degrees F, with the track barely warmer at 80 degrees F, and both were dropping as the weather changed.
Anticipating heavier rain, most drivers were sent onto the track in the opening minutes to try to get some representative dry running in, but it did little more than generate some significant traffic problems for most. Even Red Bull Racing was caught out, with Max Verstappen reprimanding his own team for failing to warn him that Carlos Sainz was closing fast behind him on a hot lap.
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No one got more than a couple of attempts at a hot lap in the dry. The rain finally struck the track around 15 minutes into the hour, and despite some prediction it would soon ease, it only intensified, rendering the rest of the session unrepresentative ahead of what is expected to be a dry grand prix.
With an outside chance of a damp qualifying, however, everyone bar Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant switched to intermediate tires for the final 45 minutes to sample the slippery track. But none could trouble the leaderboard, with Alonso having managed to capitalize on the brief dry conditions to take top spot with a run on the medium tire, his time of 1m18.887s only 0.1s slower than Verstappen’s best from earlier in the day.
Leclerc followed at 0.445s off the pace, while Verstappen was 0.615s adrift in third. George Russell was fourth ahead of Sainz, Esteban Ocon, Sergio Perez, Lando Norris, Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly.
Yuki Tsunoda, who had a new gearbox installed between practice sessions, was 11th ahead of Valtteri Bottas, Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and Zhou Guanyu.
Lance Stroll was 16th despite skating through the gravel in the early slippery conditions. Nyck de Vries finished 17th after his run in dry weather ahead of Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen.
Logan Sargeant didn’t set a lap, with work ongoing on his car after an electrical failure at the end of FP1.
Team principal Mike Krack says there is “huge momentum and huge energy” within Aston Martin as a result of its strong start to the 2023 season. Aston Martin finished seventh in the constructors’ championship last year but is currently second, level …
Team principal Mike Krack says there is “huge momentum and huge energy” within Aston Martin as a result of its strong start to the 2023 season.
Aston Martin finished seventh in the constructors’ championship last year but is currently second, level on points with Mercedes but ranked ahead thanks to two consecutive podiums for Fernando Alonso. With Alonso leading the opening two laps of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Krack says such moments provide a boost that is clearly tangible within the team.
“It’s incredible — you cannot believe it if you do not live it,” Krack said. “There is a huge momentum and huge energy in the team — I am looking forward to going to work because everyone is flat out, flat out, flat out. You have to push people out to go home to see their families at times.
“All weekend (during Saudi Arabia) we had mission control, people in the office, that were just looking at stuff and analyzing, trying to improve. So it’s really a pleasure to work in the team.”
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Although Alonso has been third behind a Red Bull one-two in each of the opening two races, Krack says he’s not convinced that Aston Martin is second-quickest overall, even if he was pleasantly surprised by the pace shown in Saudi Arabia.
“One is the race result, the other one is where are you? We always said we want to wait for the first three races to see where we are. I think we need to be careful saying second — I think we can safely say we have made a substantial improvement.
“We were cautious in expectation because you look what was different to Bahrain and we felt we were maybe a bit less competitive in high-speed section in Bahrain than in other sections, but obviously there was a lot of saving going in in Bahrain as well, so you do not really know, and it was this not knowing that’s what made us cautious about what we were going to see.
“And secondly is the straight-line performance, so basically the two things that we thought we were not the greatest in Bahrain were dominant (in Jeddah) and that made us be cautious.”
That caution continues when Krack looks ahead to the rest of the season, as he feels Mercedes and Ferrari are so close in terms of outright race pace.
“We have two data samples from two completely different tracks and in these two tracks we were competitive but there are others. It is a relative game — it could also be that one of the competitors had issues that we are not aware of and that would remix the order.”
Three hours and 50 minutes after the checkered flag fell on the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the final race classification was officially published. Put another way, it took nearly three times as long to finalize the result as it did to run the race …
Three hours and 50 minutes after the checkered flag fell on the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the final race classification was officially published.
Put another way, it took nearly three times as long to finalize the result as it did to run the race itself. And once again it’s the FIA that is coming in for criticism.
If you need a refresher, Fernando Alonso lined up too far to the left of his grid slot, earning a five-second time penalty soon after the race started. The rule exists to ensure drivers are in the right position for jump starts to be registered, as sensors play a major part in detecting early movement as long as the car is in the correct spot.
No qualms there, and Aston Martin actually got a bit of a bonus from a bittersweet moment when the safety car was needed due to Lance Stroll’s retirement. Alonso could take his penalty during a pit stop under safety car conditions, losing less race time to his competitors.
The rear jack was touching the car ready to lift it once the five-second time penalty was served, and the FIA — through a combination of Race Control and the recently-added Remote Operations Centre (ROC) in Geneva — confirmed to the stewards that it was happy with how the penalty had been served, so the stewards looked into it no further.
“Subsequently, at the last lap of the race, the stewards received a report from Race Control that they considered that the penalty was not properly served by Car 14 and they asked the stewards to investigate the matter,” an FIA document later explained. “The matter was reported to Race Control by ROC.”
This begs the question, given the fact the ROC had already approved the way the penalty was taken, were members in Geneva bored late in the race and took another look at the penalty? Or more likely, was it contacted by another team that was taking issue with the way it had been served?
“The stewards were shown video evidence of how Car 14 served the penalty by the Race Director and the Sporting Director. They stated that what was agreed at the Sporting Advisory Committee (SAC) meetings with the teams was that no part of the car could be touched while a penalty was being served as this would constitute working on the car.
“In this case, it was clear, that the car was touched by the rear jack. Based on the representation made to the stewards that there was an agreed position that touching the car would amount to ‘working’ on the car, the stewards decided to impose a penalty.”
The timing was more than suspicious, given how it removed the ability for Alonso to react by trying to extend his advantage over George Russell beyond the 10 seconds he was penalized, something he insisted he would have been able to do with ease if informed during the race.
While Aston Martin’s sporting director Andy Stevenson was walking up and down the paddock with a laptop tucked under his arm — a clear indication of visits to the FIA where he had documents to show — a rival team manager told me it was extremely likely another team had provided footage, and the fact a penalty had been handed out based on that suggested any appeal was unlikely to succeed.
But that counts against what is a growing list of head-in-hands moments when it comes to Formula 1’s governing body.
The FIA has been trying to regain the trust of fans ever since the 2021 championship finale, and it hardly had a perfect record from before that, either. But there have been multiple incidents over the past 12 months that have proven frustrating to watch play out, and Jeddah provided another one.
Aston Martin was able to take exception to the claims from the race director Niels Wittich and sporting director Steve Nielsen that “there was an agreed position that touching the car would amount to ‘working’ on the car” from previous SAC meetings. Minutes of the meetings showed that no such agreement was in place, and precedents of cars being touched by jacks when serving penalties then stood.
It’s not a great look for the race director to be being proven wrong by teams and having to reverse a penalty decision, and it’s also slightly concerning to see the well-respected Nielsen — brought in partly to improve relations between the FIA and F1 and the teams — also named as a party who misunderstood the situation.
Curb your enthusiasm, please… Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
But a lack of communication was also a major problem. Russell found out he was on the podium unexpectedly while doing post-race interviews, Alonso returned from the podium celebrations to be told he was now fourth, and then it was over three hours before the situation had been reversed. In that time, Aston Martin was able to request a right of review of the penalty, despite no other teams having received the penalty document to know what the reasoning was.
The document explaining the offense was published over four hours after the moment in question had taken place (and nearly three hours after the penalty had been handed out), and then 14 minutes later the summons for Aston Martin’s right of review hearing was published. Only that stated the hearing had taken place 40 minutes earlier.
By this point it had already become clear through sources at Aston Martin that the decision had been reversed, but none of the process had been communicated through the official channels as it took place. Rival teams were asking what was going on, and the word “shambles” cropped up regularly from multiple constructors, relating to the handling of the situation.
In the end, the right outcome was reached in the sense that jacks touching the car have been allowed in the past as long as they’re not yet lifting it, but by then even Alonso had left the track and millions of fans had long since moved on with their days, frustrated at the uncertainty surrounding the result. If you think I’m repeating myself, you’d be right.
The only area the FIA gets credit is by later explaining where the confusion over the penalty had been generated from, and confirming it would take action to prevent a repeat before the next race.
“The subsequent decision of the stewards to hear and grant the Right of Review by the Competitor was the result of new evidence regarding the definition of ‘working on the car,’ for which there were conflicting precedents, and this has been exposed by this specific circumstance,” an FIA spokesperson said.
“This topic will therefore be addressed at the next Sporting Advisory Committee taking place on Thursday, 23 March, and a clarification will be issued ahead of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.”
But after a scenario that had lacked transparency throughout, it added: “This open approach to the review and improvement of its processes is part of the FIA’s ongoing mission to regulate the sport in a fair and transparent way.”
This latest episode shows there’s still a long, long way to go on that front.
Fernando Alonso says it is “sad” for the FIA that it took until after the race to hand him a penalty that demoted him from the podium in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and shows the system needs addressing. Aston Martin had to perform a five-second …
Fernando Alonso says it is “sad” for the FIA that it took until after the race to hand him a penalty that demoted him from the podium in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and shows the system needs addressing.
Aston Martin had to perform a five-second time penalty when Alonso made his one and only pit stop after the Spaniard was deemed to be out of position on the grid, and did so under safety car conditions. However, like Alpine with Esteban Ocon’s car in Bahrain, the team was deemed to have started work on the car before the full five seconds were up, this time but no investigation was communicated during the race and it was only after the podium presentation had started that a 10-second time penalty was announced.
“Less than standard — today is not good for the fans,” Alonso said. “When you have 35 laps to apply the penalty and inform about the penalty and you wait after the podium there is something wrong in the system. It’s the way it is — I feel sorry for the fans, but I enjoyed the podium! I took the trophy, I have the pictures, I celebrate with the champagne and now 15 or 12 points doesn’t change much for me; but it is a little bit sad for the FIA, yes.”
George Russell was promoted to third place as a result and was informed of his result while he was doing interviews and far from the podium, something Alonso says also isn’t correct.
“No, it’s not fair for George as I guess the Mercedes sponsors will love to be on the podium. For us it’s good — we have Aramco, we have the picture, it’s not fair for George as if he was third in the race he should enjoy the podium and not me. I feel sorry for George, for Mercedes sponsors, for George’s fans.”
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Alonso also believes he would have been able to pull the required distance clear of Russell to finish third in the race — for what would have been his 100th podium — having responded in the closing stages to a call to try and open a five-second gap to be safe.
“I need to rewatch the race but apparently I was too much on the left so (the original penalty) was my mistake — I need to pay more attention to that. It’s also strange in two races that two cars — Esteban (Ocon) and myself — had similar things so maybe this year’s cars, the halo, whatever, is interrupting the vision of how we position the car.
“But anyway, that was my mistake. The thing is, they told me you have a five-second penalty so I pushed harder and opened a gap of seven seconds and I paid the penalty. In the second stint there was no investigation, no nothing, so if someone tells me I need 10 seconds I would open 11 seconds.”
