Alonso reveals the reason why he sank in the United States GP classification: “We went blindly”

“It was not a perfect qualifying for us with the same cars in Q1. There was a lot of traffic on the track and we finished our exit lap with about a second to go before the checkered flag. We started too close to the cars in front. “I don’t think it helped.”. This is Fernando Alonso’s explanation after his poor classification in the United States F1 GP this Friday.

The Asturian driver finished 17th, a position in which he will start Sunday’s race. He arrived in Austin as the only driver on the entire grid to enter Q3 in all course classifications. But his streak ended at the Circuit of The Americas (Cota). The man from Oviedo was left in Q3 due to many things that prevented him from making his turn in the best conditions.

Traffic turning and its preparation

The track improved a lot and all the drivers had to go out again to make a final attempt. That led to a pile-up of cars at the exit of the pit lane, and there, not the position the team had taken him out of. He was queuing on garage street, behind many other cars. And to make matters worse, he did it without enough time to prepare his tires in the best possible way.

In his preparation lap it was clear how he was trying to pass some rivals, but he had to push hard without warming up his tires properly, so as not to be left without his last attempt. In fact, he crossed the finish line with 1 second to spare before the checkered flag was shown. But at that time, I was doing it in a very bad position. He had cars in front of him, something the man from Oviedo made sure didn’t help him in his turn. And what’s more, he did it after an ‘out lap’ where he put too much stress on the tires.

“It’s very close between many cars, with only a few tenths of a difference,” Fernando Alonso highlighted in the team’s statement, pointing to another main reason for his poor qualifying result: the lack of time that he had in Free Practice 1 to find the right settings.

He started “blind” due to a problem in FP1

In a sprint format weekend, Fernando Alonso only had Free Practice 1 before qualifying to test the new parts worn by Aston Martin. I had to take advantage of that FP1 to study the new package, understand it and understand how to press the keys in the car’s settings to get its full potential. But the overheating problem of the left front brake took half an hour from Alonso and the whole session from his teammate Stroll. The man from Oviedo only had half an hour to prepare for qualifying and said he came “blind”.

“We had a difficult FP1 with some issues and we didn’t optimize the new package we brought to Austin. We’re in parc ferme today, so we’ll see what we can do this Saturday and hopefully have a more clean day.”he commented on the green box statement.

“I only did six or seven quality laps with the new package, we didn’t know how it worked, so we went into qualifying blind. We will use it this weekend as a test for next year, even if it is very painful”he pointed to the televisions.

So it is too early to draw conclusions about the new evolution package. Fernando and the team did not have time to understand him and realize his potential. The planets aligned with Austin so nothing went well for the Asturian. He wants to start to forget it on independent sprint day, this Saturday.