Alonso, accident in the final: "I apologize to the team"

Qualifying for the Monte Carlo GP ended with a nice double top-10 Alpine, which finally managed to realize, at least in part, the potential of a car that often appeared this year fast but unlucky. Tomorrow Fernando Alonso he will start from seventh position on the starting grid, even ahead of his old teammate at the time of McLaren, Lewis Hamilton. Or with instead he will start tenth, beaten by an amazing Sebastian Vettel, ninth and particularly competitive at the wheel of the Aston Martin. Alonso, however, ‘gave’ a few hours of extra work to his mechanics, finishing long and into the wall in his last attempt just as the red flag was displayed for the Perez-Sainz accident.

“Even though we made a big improvement with the car for today and from a position point of view it was a good qualifying, we could have done even better – commented an insatiable Alonso – on my first attempt in Q3 I was fifth. As the track evolved, I think we could have kept this position for tomorrow. Unfortunately I got stuck under braking at the Mirabeau. In Monaco when you lose your concentration, even for just a second, it can have a big impact, so I apologize to the team. We need to see if it will rain tomorrow – concluded the Asturian, in reference to the weather – because in that case it could all become very chaotic, with the safety car and red flags. If it rains, I’m sure it will be nice to watch on TV, but very stressful inside the car “.

Esteban Ocon, on the other hand, was able to rejoice for access to Q3, which was not obvious after some difficulties suffered over the weekend: “After three difficult free practice sessions, in which performance was lacking, it is a good feeling to arrive in Q3 in Monaco. We knew that qualifying was crucial today, so the goal was to find the right set up after trying different things between yesterday and today. I have mixed feelings, however, because I was about to do a great last lap before the accident that interrupted the session. However, we showed that the pace was there and we were able to get it out when needed, so the team did a great job. Tomorrow we have both cars in the top ten and most likely some rain is waiting for us. It will be interesting, we know that anything can happen in this sport“.