Fernando Alonso arrived at the F1 United States GP with an Aston Martin full of improvements, hoping to see a step forward with his new components. He did this cautiously, knowing that McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari had surpassed his car in their evolution, and that Mercedes, Haas or AlphaTauri also had evolutions. But I want to get out in the ring to try out those new pieces and get the most out of them. He couldn’t achieve it, or at least not what it seemed, on a first day that went wrong from the start. In FP1, an overheating problem with the brakes took out half a session of the only Free Practice session that existed before the real fire, of the afternoon classification. He had half an hour to test, he didn’t use the soft and went out on track in qualifying to see what he could get out of his car. But it wasn’t his day.
In qualifying this Friday at the F1 United States GP, the green car did not shine. In a ‘qualy’ with a constantly improving track, in a grid where passing each slice becomes increasingly complicated due to the enormous equality and competitiveness that exists between all the teams, the drivers are risked their place in Q1 on their final lap. Even Max Verstappen, who has the best car, wants to put on extra new rubber to set a time. He’s not even safe, and he’s playing in a different league.
In that context, Fernando was not able to prepare his return in the best way. A queue formed in the pit lane when he came out for his final lap and he was almost out of time. He came to the horn, with just one second to spare, to cross the theme line to make his final turn.
Perhaps the extra stress he had to put on the tires at the end of his warm-up turn could have affected him and his lap wasn’t so brilliant. Alonso was 17th. He missed Q1 and was out of the Top-10 for the first time all season. His teammate, Stroll, was 19th. Bad day for those in green. Saturday remains, a sprint-independent day, where you can get rid of the bad taste in your mouth.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
