Alonso: “I will try to pass Checo in the first lap because we like to lead”

Fernando Alonso He has been warning for several days: “Our strength is on Sunday.” And he made it clear on Thursday that with the high temperatures expected on the track for the race, considering that the Aston Martins take better care of the tires than the Ferraris, Sunday could be a good day. The question is if it rains, but if it doesn’t, Alonso, starting 2nd behind ‘poleman’ Pérez, made it clear that he would try to take first place at the start from ‘Checo’, but it’s just because “He likes to lead”, knowing that Red Bull will be superior in the straight and should not give him a chance to win. In addition, consider that Max Verstappen, who will start 9th, “will get there quickly”.

For this reason, starting from 2nd, he set the great goal of his fourth podium in 5 races after a ‘qualification’ with a better result than expected thanks to the final accident of Leclerc, which reversed the last time table.

The man from Oviedo will attack in the first meters, but he will do it from the dirty side, which is more on this track. He knew that it might be normal for Sainz (3rd) to pass him, as the man from Madrid was coming out on the clean side. But at the pace of the race, his Aston Martin should have plenty of power to go for third place and take advantage of any Red Bull mistakes to dream of something else.

CLASSIFICATION

“It’s a good quality. We are up and down with recent events. In Baku, it was very difficult in some free training sessions. It was a bit more than a normal weekend here and we were able to experiment with the setup and car options and I think we did well for qualifying. The car feels great. Q3 stopped with a red flag and we didn’t know what we could do. I think I have some rhythm left in the car because I lapped first with the used tires and even the red flag was getting better. I still have a lot left, but we start from the front row of the grid and see what we can do.”

“MUCH CONFIDENCE” FOR THE RACE

“Confidence? A lot. Sunday is our day, usually. The car takes care of the tires very well and we have a very good race pace. And we have problems on Saturday. Whenever you start higher things are easier . And we have strong opponents behind us. Ferrari is strong here and in Bakñu, where they brought improvements. Max, I’m sure he will come at some point in the race and I think he will be fast. There are something to worry about in the mirrors but we will do our race. We hope to get points from our rivals from Mercedes, who had a difficult weekend”.

THE BEGINNING, TO ATTACK PÉREZ

First lap: “I don’t think we need to win, especially after the weekend. Even the podium will be difficult. But we will do our race, this is what we have done all season, in a privileged position that we have not expected. Every lap we do is a gift, the team is enjoying it. We will try to pass Checo in the first lap because we like to lead, at least a couple. And after that we will be in the position we deserve, if it’s 51 it’s 51, if it’s 71, 71, and that’s another podium, incredible, but it’s going to be a very tough race.

UNEXPECTED RESULTS (DAZN)

“We didn’t expect this at all. Our weekend was pretty regular. We have experimented with the settings in FP1 and FP3 because in Baku we soon found out that there is only one FP1 and so we took advantage here to make some changes, and then when we saw that we were a bit lost, we went back to a more normal car in the time trial and everything went back to normal. And then the asphalt, a challenge for everyone this weekend, we started to understand it in the sessions time trial, how fast we have to do the lap outside the pits, the temperature of the tires to start the lap… we still have a little margin because we lap with used tires, but I can’t complain in the front row”.

“CZECH IS USUALLY MORE CAREFUL IN THE BEGINNING” (DAZN)

“This is going to be interesting. ‘Checo’ is a bit cautious isn’t he?… don’t tell him, eh! Like in Jeddah. Let’s see if we can lead the race even for a few laps and then he pulls and he got away. But we’ll see how we come out. For the dirty part. We were complaining about the lack of grip on the line and we went off the line… so maybe we start regularly and lose positions to Carlos or something . But if Aston Martin has had something good in the first races it is the breakdown, so we will make the start easy and the race will be long”.