Fernando Alonso: “We had a difficult Q3…”

Fernando Alonso says his Q3 session was ruined by being stuck behind Sergio Perez.

The Spaniard implied that he’d like to see the Sauber driver – who was clearly just doing his own thing and going for a time – get a penalty, even if that won’t help his own grid position.

Alonso found himself stuck in eighth place, having been fastest in Q2.

“We had a difficult Q3, a lot of traffic in front of us, we didn’t make a clean lap, and this is the position,” he said. “It was difficult, obviously always changing conditions, and a red flag caused some stress in Q2 because we were P11 at the time.

“If we are eighth it’s because we deserve it, and tomorrow we try to recover. It’s true I didn’t make any single lap in Q3 without Perez in front of me, so we will see what will happen now. Obviously he’s behind me so I will not recover any position [if he’s penalised].”

Alonso says he’s hopeful of a strong race tomorrow, given that passing is possible at Spa.

“Obviously this is a circuit that offers you the possibility to overtake. There’s a very long straight after Eau Rouge, where we should use the DRS. If we are quick tomorrow, there are places to overtake, but no one knows how competitive each one is here because we didn’t make enough laps in practice or enough laps today in qualy. Tomorrow will be a question mark for everybody. Hopefully we are competitive enough to be fighting at the front.

“Set-up wise most of the top teams chose a dry set-up, because tomorrow conditions should be dry. Let’s hope that tomorrow everything is OK, and no rain, and we see a good race.”