Fernando Alonso accepts mistake in tangle with Zhou Guanyu in F1 Austrian GP, as he adds on the continuing loss of performance from Aston Martin.
To make matters worse for Aston Martin, Alonso made an uncharacteristic error in F1 Austrian GP after he collided with Stake’s Guanyu while fighting for track position. They had Visa Cash App RB’s Daniel Ricciardo on their tail who sneaked through.
The stewards handed a penalty to Alonso for causing a collision which the Spaniard accepted after misjudgment on his part. “I made a mistake,” he said to media. “Obviously I didn’t expect to lock up. And then when you lock up it seems that you go on throttle because the car doesn’t have any more retardation.
“They brake extremely early. Both they were trying to maybe play the DRS catch or whatever. And then yeah, my fault, my mistake. Nothing I can do.” Guanyu, meanwhile, did not expect a divebomb from Alonso like that which derailed his grand prix as well.
“I was obviously looking at a white car behind me, overtaking me side-by-side into the corner,” Guanyu said. “The next thing I saw was a green Fernando trying to dive-bomb. I think he was trying to race the guys I was also overtaken by.
“I think he just went too deep and hit me basically. So the car was quite damaged after that. [I was] lucky enough to continue, to be honest.” The collision with Guanyu was only part of a disastrous outing for Aston Martin, who returned empty handed after Alonso was only 18th and Lance Stroll ended up 13th in the order.
The performance came as little surprise to Alonso, as Aston Martin has been in this lull for quite few races now. The Spaniard insists the faith is there and that the F1 team can still turn around their fortunes, but they will need to act upon it certainly.
“I have a very clear feeling,” said Alonso. “We need to get better for the next race. About the details, I think it’s a very clear answer. So let’s try to get better for Silverstone. No, not really [that we have to rethink out approach]. And yes, absolutely [I have faith on the team], especially the next race, Silverstone is our home grand prix.
“It cannot be any other home grand prix than Silverstone for Aston Martin. So we really need to perform better there. I’m reasonably optimistic that we can turn things around. In Austria, it was better in the race than sprint, in terms of race pace but when you start at the back you know this group of cars in front of you the tyre management becomes really impossible and then you fall behind always.
“So yeah we need to qualify better we need to have more pace and as I said the more races we do with these difficulties more clear answers we get and this is what we need to work out now. Also, the qualifying, especially when you put the new soft tyres, always give you a lot of grip for one lap. That big grip is masking some of the car performances.
“So the real picture is more in the race than qualifying. In qualifying, everyone has the grip. It’s tight and Q1 probably is one of the most stressful moments of the weekend, even for the top teams because there is no guarantee that it will go through,” summed up Alonso.
Here’s the clash between Fernando Alonso and Zhou Guanyu: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-austrian-grand-prix-alonso-locks-up-and-hits-zhou-in-fight-for-p12.1803295615834097756
Here’s Aston Martin taking in Andy Cowell
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