Fernando Alonso admits he is “concerned” with Aston Martin’s race pace in Formula 1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite relishing his “surprise” fourth-place grid berth.
Alonso qualified in sixth for the season-opening race in Bahrain but regressed to ninth in the race, conceding that he had overperformed the car’s potential over one lap.
The Spaniard excelled once again at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, following up going quickest in the second practice session with the fourth-fastest time in qualifying.
However, Alonso expressed he harbours reservations over Aston Martin’s chances of converting his second-row start into a more considerable points haul this weekend.
Asked whether he was frustrated to miss out on the front row having been 0.055s adrift of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in second position, Alonso said: “No, not really.
“We are surprised about the performance of this car over one lap, so I think it’s not our natural position to be on the second row of the grid.
“We saw in Bahrain we were very strong in free practice and qualifying and then in the race we fall back into our natural position – the fifth fastest team behind McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes – and today is more of the same story. We are ultra-competitive over one lap, and the car is responding well, but we are still very concerned about tomorrow.”
Alonso revealed that the long-run data from practice had suggested that Aston Martin’s AMR24
“In Bahrain we were definitely faster over one lap compared to the long-run pace,” he noted. “Here it seems that we were faster yesterday on new tyres than on the long run pace.
“So there is a trend it seems this year that we are struggling on the long runs, on the race pace.
“We made a few tweaks to the car and the set-up and we will have the answer tomorrow night. But let’s hope to have a stronger race than Bahrain.”
While Alonso is hopeful set-up tweaks will improve the Silverstone squad’s outlook, he believes that the conditions of qualifying again concealed its weaknesses.
Asked about his confidence in the changes designed to improve things on the race pace side, Alonso replied: “I think so. Yeah, I think so.
“Even though you end up in the race in the place that you deserve, I think the new tyres sometimes mask the performance of the cars and the peak grip of the tyre is just giving you extra.
“Tyre preparation, out laps, all these type of things are sometimes more important than the car performance, while in the race there is nothing to hide.
“In the race, you slowly go back to your natural position.
“So I think there is still some work to do to catch up with the top four, but let’s hope to start in front of them and defend as much as we can.”
Aston Martin had been a consistent force in the first and second sectors but struggled in the flat-out third sector when strong straight-line speed became essential.
Alonso had appeared to navigate that when he capitalised on Lewis Hamilton completing his lap to steal a tow on the start-finish straight ahead of his final Q3 run.
However, Alonso has clarified that it had been a “coincidence”, citing that he had to “either negotiate the last corner and maybe impede Lewis a little bit, or I let him go.
“I took the tow but my tyres were ice cold for Turn 1 and Turn 2. So overall I lost half a tenth – I gained one-tenth with the tow and I lost one-tenth and a half in Turn 1 and Turn 2 because the tyres were not super-ready, so it was not ideal, the out lap in general,” he explained.
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