Alonso in disbelief at the end of the Australian GP: “I’ve never experienced a race like this”

Three out of three. Fernando Alonso added his third podium in Australia so far this seasona good result that came after a crazy race full of accidents and ‘Safetys Cars’ which ended up being Max Verstappen.

“I never lived this career. It was a roller coaster of emotions. In the last half hour it was difficult to understand what was happening” said the Asturian driver after the race.

“Mercedes and Lewis are so fast, I haven’t been able to get close to them. The first red flag helped us, but the second one didn’t. Still, it was an amazing Sunday. I hope to be higher on the podium in the next races” he added.

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Alonso was in the box for the 101st time at Albert Park. The double world champion – who at the age of 41 faces his twentieth season in F1 – was third in the Bahrain premiere and repeated that position two weeks ago, in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).

This Sunday, by finishing third in Melbourne, he achieved his third consecutive podium: something that hadn’t happened in almost ten years, when he chained three-second places at the Belgian, Italian and Singapore Grands Prix.

Before the start of this season, Fernando last climbed into the drawer on November 21, 2021by finishing third in the then-debutant Qatar Grand Prix, won by Englishman Lewis Hamilton ahead of Dutchman Max Verstappen.

In Melbourne, Alonso qualified again just behind the twoin a race that was resolved in a crazy way -after three red flags- and ‘Mad Max’ won ahead of the seven-time British world champion.

A year and almost four months have passed between the podium in Qatar and the first of three he has been with his new team, Aston Martin. But between the 97 and 98 podiums of the great Asturian driver – also the World Endurance Champion (WEC), the 2018-19 ‘super-season’, with Toyota, where he won (twice) the 24 Hours of Le Mans (France) – seven years and almost four months have passed.

Before the end of the third in November 2021 in Lusail (Qatar), Alonso was last on the podium at the Hungaroring -the scene of his first victory, in 2003-, where he finished second in the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix, in July of that year.