Fernando Alonso says his brake issue could have resulted in a major crash in F1 Chinese GP, as Lance Stroll scores after a strategy that helped his rivals.
It wasn’t the start Aston Martin’s Alonso wanted to F1 Chinese GP. His rear brakes was on fire as noted by Alpine’s Pierre Gasly behind too. The Spaniard eventually had to retire early on, leaving Stroll to run alone. Post-race, the two-time champion noted about the brakes getting hot since start of the race.
He feels it was good that the issue happened to him at the part of the circuit where it is not too dangerous unlike latter part which could have led to a crash. From the knowledge of the sprint and general run, Alonso feels Aston Martin’s pace was slightly better than Australia in China.
“The brakes apparently were very hot since the beginning of the race,” said Alonso. “Then by lap three or lap four I went on the brakes in Turn 1 and the pedal went just to the bottom of the chassis. That was super-scary. Luckily Turn 1 is just a corner that you just downshift and go into the corner.
“If that happens in Turn 14 or whatever I think it could be a massive crash because I will take four or five cars in front of me out of the race. So, an unlucky situation, I think we were lucky to not hit any car in front of us or whatever.
“The race pace and quali pace was slightly better in China than Australia, we just have try to keep the momentum going forward. Now let’s try to understand what happened and try to see the first chequered flag in Japan,” summed up Alonso, whose teammate Stroll tried the bold strategy which paved way for others to copy and score heavy.
Stroll went deep in the race on the hard tyres he started which gave idea and comfort to others around him to switch to one stop strategy barring the Visa Cash App RB pair. The Canadian was running just outside the Top 5, but after the pit stop, he dropped outside in the hope to fight back.
But his pace was nowhere on the medium tyres as he struggled to recover as many places to eventually ended up 12th in the order. But he gained three places in the end to be ninth after the disqualification of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly, who all finished ahead of him.
“I thought the race was coming to us after the pit stop but on the mediums, we grained the tyres straightaway, just didn’t have the pace to work and then I think the whole race ended up just becoming a one-stop for everybody, so that was that,” said Stroll before gaining the places. “I think we have a lot to work on, for sure, if we want to finish in the points comfortably going forward.”
