Alonso doesn’t hide: He’s fed up

Fernando Alonso it can no longer be hidden. He was fed up. He wants to end the season as soon as possible to get some fresh air and start 2023 with more force, a new project, with new hopes and ambitions with his new team, Aston-Martin. He has spent many careers repeating his interviews “another car problem 14”. We warned him, it was no coincidence that he phrased it that way. He didn’t do it to remember his number, but to highlight the many reliability problems that have plagued him this year, which cost him “about 50 points” in the early part of the championship, a figure that has increased Fernando said almost “66 points” after a new disappointment he had to live in Mexico. There, his car let him down again as he once again set the bar higher than expected in a car that had suffered a lot in recent days. He was 7th after a perfect race, with a good start, good tire management in a very long first stint, setting a good pace. He now has a ton of points on his hands, but once again, his car fails, this time one of its cylinders runs out before its engine completely breaks down.

Fernando Alonso’s anger is at its highest. The straw broke the camel’s back. And after so many times glancing over and over “again, in car 14”, he spoke clearly and loudly about the difference in reliability between his car and another Alpine single-seater, Esteban Ocon’s.

“I lost about 66 points this year”

“For car 14 there are always reliability problems. With 20 laps left, I lost a cylinder so I was running on five cylinders, 20% less power. I was 20 seconds ahead of the McLarens and my teammate . So I think the race up to that point was exceptional. I rate the races in Austin and the one in Mexico as my two best races in terms of speed,” he said. And he clarified that for him, “the best thing” was after the engine broke down so that it could not be mounted again in the last remaining races: “It would be better if it exploded at the end, so we stopped the car. and stopped doing those laps” .

“I lost 60 points this year, so we added six more, so I lost about 66. And obviously everyone benefits, because everyone gets more points than they should., he pointed out. Fernando Alonso’s discomfort with the reliability of his material on his side of the box is such that he even compares it to the problems he suffered during his years at McLaren-Honda.

“Two cars retired in each race, one was 14”

“But yes, it’s incredible that only one or two cars retire in each race and one of them is always car 14. I think this year I blew five engines – the problem in Australia in qualifying, in Austria I couldn’t start a race because there was a blackout… So I think in 19 races, more or less 50% of the races, we didn’t get the points we deserved. But there’s nothing we can do now,” he said, making it clear that he found no equivalent in terms of reliability in relation to those who had it McLaren-Honda in 2015when the Japanese engine continued to fail. “In the first year of Honda, we had a penalty of 72 grid positions at the end of the year, something like that, but what happens is that with Honda both cars stop. This year only 14 cars stopped.

“It can’t be a matter of bad luck”

Szafnauer said a few months ago that the fact that the Spaniard’s car suffered more reliability problems than Ocon’s was a matter of pure bad luck. “When I was at Honda in 2004, only Takuma Sato could break the engine. Sometimes that’s just bad luck,” said Alpine’s Team Principal at the time. But it is clear to Alonso that the problem is another: “Machines cannot finish races. It can’t be unlucky when you have to change six or seven engines like we did and we haven’t finished the races. So I think Alpine has some work to do next winter. I hope it’s not too much,” he added.

looking forward to departure

In the statements on ‘DAZN F1’, he already said that “there are only two races left”, in a clear reference to his desire to end this nightmare and start his new project with Aston Martin. They asked him later if he was counting the hours: “Yes, one hundred percent”. However, he stressed that he will continue to do his best for Alpine in the remaining races: “I will go, I will drive as fast as I can, I will celebrate our last race with Abu Dhabi and I will fly home”. And it is as he said on Saturday, despite his anger, Alonso does not forget the importance of this team in his career: He wants to continue helping Alpine to get fourth place in the Constructors’ World Championship. The French team was only 7 points ahead of McLaren in that match. They need Alonso’s points like rain in May.