F1 | Aston: Alonso out of the points, but he thought he finished 10th

Aston Martin returned home from Monaco without a single point. A totally different haul from that of a year ago, when Fernando Alonso closed the race in second place with the regret that a different strategy could have also led him to victory. This year, in addition to the progress of the opponents, the Monegasque track has not adapted well to certain characteristics of the AMR24, particularly in qualifying, which makes the efficiency of the DRS and the improved performance in the fast sections a good compromise to surprise on Saturdays on other tracks.

For this reason, finishing outside the top ten did not totally surprise the British manufacturer, although perhaps a little more was expected compared to teams like Williams who finished in the top ten and reached Q3 in qualifying. The level was not far from that of Haas, which compared to last year made a good step forward thanks to some technical measures, especially at a suspension level, while once again Aston Martin had to give way to Racing Bulls, always more consistent.

However, there was no shortage of curious episodes in the race, including the fact that Fernando Alonso believed he had finished in tenth place, securing the last valid position to score at least one point. However, the Spaniard actually finished in eleventh position, outside the top ten.

The Aston Martin driver spent much of the race playing as a team player to create enough of a gap for Lance Stroll to stop and fit fresher tyres, in the hope that it would make a difference given the extremely slow pace imposed on the competition. A task carried out to perfection, so much so that after half the race the Canadian actually returned to the pits to fit a new set of hard tires, although only a few laps later he had to stop a second time following a puncture in the left rear tire. due to contact with the barriers.

Alonso’s thought was that Stroll was originally in tenth position, so when the Canadian suffered the puncture, the Spaniard would have inherited the last position valid for the top ten. This pushed him to successfully defend himself from Daniel Ricciardo, despite a medium tire that had now run 76 laps against the Australian’s hard tire. Although the life of the tire did not actually represent a problem, so much so that the times dropped towards the end, certainly doing so many laps on the same set represented a challenge, even in Monaco.

“I got confused why when [abbiamo accumulato il distacco] and Lance was in front of me after the pit stops, they said, ‘Okay, we’ve secured tenth place.’ We did all this for that last point,” explained Alonso.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Then Lance got a puncture and I said to myself: ‘Oh, now I have all the responsibility on my shoulders, with very old tyres, to bring home this point’. I drove for many laps thinking I was tenth. And then, when I I crossed the finish line and they told me P11, I said, ‘Oh, all this stress for nothing,’ it kept me alive anyway,” Alonso explained. In fact, listening to the radio messages again after the race, Alonso himself explained that he believed he was in tenth position under the checkered flag.

“I don’t know why it happened. When the red flag came out, Lance was in tenth position, I was twelfth. Then at a certain point they put Sainz back in third place, so we were further back, but Lance was ahead of Daniel and wouldn’t have had to be. So I don’t know what position I started in and I don’t know what position I was driving in.” In fact, before the grid was reorganized, Stroll had managed to overtake one of the two Alpines, taking precisely that tenth place. With the FIA’s decision to restore order to Safety Car Line 2 and not to the original grid, Stroll slipped back to eleventh position, behind Gasly, but also ahead of Ricciardo, who was overtaken before the last useful reference to reorder the field. grill.

Beyond the confusion over the order of arrival, Alonso underlined how this Monaco GP should be an example for changing the rule that allows tires to be replaced under a red flag, especially if this happens during the first laps.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“When there is a red flag, you change tires and you get to the end, the only point of interest in a Monaco race are the pit stops you have to make. If you take away the emotion of a pit stop, then there is nothing left to do,” Alonso said.

“Maybe we reopen the discussion of when there is a red flag, of not changing tires or being forced to have the same tire or something like that because, otherwise, there are some occasions in which the race is compromised. In our case it was very unlucky again. I think we didn’t have the right pace. It was a bad weekend. There is no doubt about our performance, but also that we were very unlucky.

“We started with a hard tire just to go to the end and have an alternative strategy. There is a red flag, so we have to put on the mediums and do 78 laps on the mediums, a kamikaze strategy, but it was the only way to try to try and get some points.”