Alonso achieved something unthinkable thanks to these two moments

Fernando Alonso He made the unthinkable possible again. He said that achieving 4th position in the World Championship, against Leclerc, Sainz and Norris’ McLaren in the final round in Abu Dhabi, was only possible if something unexpected happened. But in a smooth event, the Spaniard again maximized the performance of his Aston Martin and ended up surprising. In a car that should not have been 7th in the race, through good strategy and management of the event, he achieved a 4th place in the World Championship that no one expected, not even the Asturian.

The Spaniard himself was surprised to finish 7th in the classification. Cars like Pérez or Hamilton should come to the race, with theoretically better speed. But the man from Oviedo ended the appointment in the same position. All this, for two main reasons, two moments where Fernando Alonso made the difference. The first has to do with his intelligence behind the wheel and his reading of the race. The second, his hands. With a car from the team that finished 5th in the Drivers’ World Championship, the most normal thing is to finish 9th in the World Championship. Or more importantly, some position above considers the Aston Martin to be the second best car to begin with. But he finished 4th overall.

He’s back to ‘making magic’, as they say. But all magic has its own tricks. Below, the two keys that got him to finish 4th.

He realized one thing before the others

The first key is a situation of great intelligence and cunning. Alonso read before anyone else that the tires wouldn’t last long enough to make a single stop. Everyone wanted to go with the one-stop approach, but Fernando realized that the tires did not hold first and reacted first. He decided to enter before the others and that won him. Staying on the track any longer could cost him time in his battles for position in a tight race where he once again battles with worse weapons, with “the slowest car on the straight, in now.”

He won the duel with Hamilton and Tsunoda without top speed

Another key is winning their rivalries. He withstood Gasly’s pressure and eventually won the game over Tsunoda and Lewis Hamilton. What happened to the British was remarkable. Few drivers could make up the ground Lewis lost at the start of his second and final round of tyres.

After his second stop, Lewis arrived like a rocket with hotter tires following him. Alonso used cunning. He braked in a place where Hamilton didn’t expect it to allow Lewis to pass the DRS detection line first. In this way, Alonso will be able to touch him. Hamilton overtook him but the man from Oviedo stayed there, eventually returning to overtake.

“Hamilton protested at Turn 5 because I braked. I tried to give him the DRS so I could overtake him. We already did it in Canada 2012. 11 years later, we played the same game of cat and mouse. He has a lot of quality and experience, but I have more”, he said between laughs. Winning that race with the slower car gave Tsunoda an unexpected 4th place in the World Championship, tied on points with Leclerc, who was 2nd yesterday against Russell (3rd), but with more podiums than the Monegasque. And he passed Norris by one point, who was 4th yesterday.