Fernando Alonso thought his race was over in F1 Las Vegas GP at Turn 1, as Lance Stroll says the car came alive in the race for big recovery.
It wasn’t the greatest of starts for Aston Martin’s Alonso in F1 Las Vegas GP where he spun on his own at Turn 1. The spin though caught out Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas as they were in front of each other with damaged front wings.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez got caught out too to hit the back of Bottas and all three had to pit under the Virtual Safety Car period. Alonso thought his race got over but he managed to continue on well to end up ninth and in points from last on the grid.
“I didn’t see the TV yet and I still need to watch what happened,” said Alonso to media. “I lost the car. I don’t know if I was in a sandwich between two cars or if I was alone – I don’t know yet. I thought it was over when I saw the Alfa Romeo and I was facing the wrong way, but, thanks to the Safety Car, I rejoined the group at the back.
“We could race from there and scored points, especially with both cars – great result from Lance. I think that gave us some good energy into the last race, so I’m happy with the final result and scoring some points,” summed up Alonso.
His teammate Stroll also initially started from the back of the grid but gained 10 places to be in the Top 10 at the end of Lap 1. The pace and strategy worked for him with some luck with the safety car and it landed him well into the points.
He was sixth on the road but George Russell’s penalty promoted him to fifth, as he noted that Aston Martin generally works well in the races than qualifying as was demonstrated. “A lot of guys pitted under the Virtual Safety Car at the beginning, or the Safety Car, so I don’t think that’s really when the race came to us,” said Stroll.
“Lap 1 was really good as we gained like 10 positions with a lot of guys going wide at Turn 1, and from there, we had really good pace in the car. We were on the front foot attacking the whole race, which is different. The race was not too different but I think generally we’ve been a bit more of a Sunday car this year compared to Saturdays.
“It’s been a trend for over a year, like in qualifying it was tricky to fight with some cars like Haas, Alpine, Alfa Romeo and then in the race, we were way quicker than them and that’s been a bit of trend over the year with just a very good car on a Sunday, sometimes a bit on Saturday but generally it is much better on Sunday, so I felt like that was the case again.”
Here’s what happened at Turn 1: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-las-vegas-grand-prix-verstappen-snatches-the-lead-from-leclerc-at-turn-1-with-chaos-down-the-field-on-the-race-start.1782972479311894943.html
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