Fernando Alonso was pleased with good points in F1 Azerbaijan GP, as he notes that one managed to beat two Williams in the end.
Amid all the noise created by Williams and Haas along with the Top 4 teams, Aston Martin and Alonso went quietly about their job in F1 Azerbaijan GP weekend. He was the lone warrior after Lance Stroll couldn’t match his teammate in qualifying.
He was quickly out of picture in the race after an early tangle with Yuki Tsunoda. This left Alonso to fend off against the two Williams immediately and also the pair of Haas at a distant along with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who was out of position.
While McLaren’s Lando Norris was able to get in front of him, it was not easy for Hamilton who found himself in the Williams and Haas train. And Alonso managed to keep them all behind. The strategy worked for him as well, with the right amount of pace.
With a chance to finish eighth, he ended up sixth after a late collision. “Yeah, definitely quite happy,” said Alonso to media. “Obviously, on a normal weekend, only ninth and 10th is available for the midfield teams. And thanks to some action in front of us, sixth was available, and we were there to take it.
“So yeah, an opportunistic Sunday for us, a lot of points. So happy for the team. We were flexible, one or two stops were still working for us. So we followed more or less the trend, and whatever the people around us were doing, we copy and mirror the strategy. And yeah, it was the good one at the end.
“We were able to maintain the position with Franco, Alex and Nico at one point. So yeah, a tough race. Obviously, no time to relax, but in a way, well-executed. Good pit stops with the strategy, good tyre deg. Maybe not super pace this weekend, but we’re still executing the race well enough to score a lot of points. So happy for the team.”
Alonso recalled Williams’ Alexander Albon’s statement after qualifying about a two vs one attack on the Spaniard. The Grove-based team split strategy in order to catch the Spaniard, but to no avail in the end, for Aston Martin to win the two on one fight.
“There is not much to calculate in a way when you are in a middle of the race, he’s pushing the maximum, I am pushing the maximum, trying to open a little bit of gap,” said Alonso. “I think his strategy was compromised a little bit in the way that he had to overtake Franco and Nico, so those laps on the medium tyres, if you are fighting hard as he had to do, it is a bad thing to introduce the tyres.
“So that was probably my safety net to have Nico and Franco. They were fast this weekend, it was two against one as Alex said after qualifying and one was enough in the race. I think we had more deg than we anticipated, and that we would love to, but the top speed was definitely a help.
“Some moments that they were close behind I saw in the straight they were not even catching with the DRS, so I was a little bit more relaxed than other races,” summed up Alonso, who pins on Haas and Williams being quicker in recent events.
Even though Aston Martin has enough points to retain fifth in the championship, but Alonso cannot see beyond that their rivals are now matching them on pace and that he wants to reverse the situation and retain the position pace wise. “I think Williams and Haas generally they’ve been quicker the last three events, I would say,” he said.
“Kevin in Monza was outstandingly quick and fast, even with a 10-second penalty he finished in front of us. So there are a couple of races that we fall behind, and we want to reverse this, and we want to become the fifth fastest team as soon as possible. So yes, Singapore another opportunity.”
Here’s Williams’ out foxing not working against Aston Martin
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP panned out
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact