Alonso, at the gate of a record in Australia that he only achieved as world champion

Fernando Alonso He will try to make the adage no two without three beautiful this weekend, in an equation that also brings back good memories. After being the first of the ‘mortals’ behind his wheel Aston Martin after red bull in Bahrain and Saudi Arabiawith two third places, the driver from Oviedo will be looking this weekend in Australia to maintain his good start to the season on the circuit Albert Parkwhich he won in 2006.

Despite his vast experience in Formula 1, if Alonso can get on the podium this weekend at the Melbourne circuit, he will once again make history, as it will be the third time in his long sporting career that he has made the podium at first. three races. Previously, he was only able to make good starts to the campaign in 2005 and 2006, precisely the years in which he was declared world champion. In 2005 he began the path to what was his first title with third place, behind the Italian Giancarlo Fisichella and the Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, and in 2006 the Spaniard went to Australia as this time, in the third round of the championship. After finishing third in the standings, Alonso won with his Renault after completing 57 laps of the track with a 1.8-second margin over the Finn. Kimi Raikkonen and the german Ralf Schumacher, second and third.

However, and due to the performance of the Red Bulls in the first two races, the lively single-seater starts as favorites, in a circuit where last year the Mexican ‘Czech’ Perez is second and where Max Verstappen he had to drop out after the power unit of his Honda engine failed. The Dutch pilot himself maintains a love-hate story with the Australian Grand Prix. It is the circuit that saw him debut a long way back in 2015 with toro rosso, but despite Max’s two world titles, he has yet to climb to the top of the ‘aussie’ podium. He’s only stepped on it once, in 2019, oddly enough Aston Martin Red Bull Racingwhen it was third behind the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.

Leads the World Cup standings with more points than his teammate Sergio Perez, Verstappen acknowledged that “Australia has not been going well for us in recent years. I really want to go back Australia. It’s a very nice track with some fast parts. I love driving here, hopefully we can have a good race, we just need a consistent normal weekend. As a team, we haven’t won here since 2011, let’s see what we’re capable of this time”, Max pointed out before the race.

Like Verstappen, himself Ferdinand –3rd in the World Cup with 30 points, more than ten Carlos Sainz, 4th – also noted that “Australia is always a fun race and I’d love to see how the track differs over the years. It will be faster than last year and hopefully we will see more overtaking”, stressing the importance of qualifying well on Saturday. “As always, qualifying will probably be key in Albert Park. We have to make sure we have a strong Saturday to put ourselves in the best position to score as many points as possible,” with the added bonus of matching his two best F1 starts.