“Something broke in the back”

Fernando Alonso had a weekend to forget, although he may come out of it with more positive thoughts. Aston Martin debuted a new aerodynamic package at this event, knowing the difficulty of bringing new parts, understanding them and finding the key to the car’s settings in a free practice session before qualifying ( this weekend there are only a few Freebies as it is a sprint format). To make matters worse, a brake problem in that FP1 meant Alonso only had half an hour to spare. He came blindly, almost without data, to the classification and 17th. With this perspective, the team went from thinking about racing to prioritizing data acquisition and news understanding.

So, they decided to use this Sunday’s race as a test. Fernando Alonso came out of the race with an aerodynamic package from the previous race, while his teammate Lance Stroll will do so with new features, but changing the settings compared to the ones they tried in qualifying. The main goal is to compare the performance of different pieces at the same time on the track. What they didn’t expect was the speed of the Asturian’s car. He started in the pit lane and finished 8th. He could leave Austin with some unexpected points. But a last-minute car problem forced him to leave.

“It was a very big race in the end…”

“It’s a super race in the end. Starting in the pit lane, we finished eighth and ninth for sure (9th is Walking). So we had a bit of a different story in the race today compared to the two days of the weekend. There was more speed in the car, we could pass the central zone quite easily and Russell and I are becoming close. So, I think this has been good news. The bad guy has to retire.”announced Fernando Alonso in remarks on ‘DAZN F1’.

“I don’t know if it’s a suspension or floor problem.They are still investigating it, but something broke in the back and we had to stop for safety. It’s a bit more painful because when you start in the pit lane and you’re about to finish 8th and you have to retire., it’s difficult because I think we deserved it (to score). Those are the races and we will see in Mexico.”

THE EVOLUTIONS

“We have to analyze. We had a new car all weekend. Yesterday we did a race with the new car (sprint race), and today Lance went with the new car and a different setup and I went with the old car with a more familiar setup. So now we will put everything on the table and draw conclusions. We want to leave Austin, after a difficult weekend, even knowing and with a clear conclusion facing Mexico, and today’s race is more than an ‘FP0’ (Free Practice 0) to get to FP1 in Mexico prepared. But it was an FP0 where we were more competitive than the rest of the weekend. So there is good news at least in that sense.”