After starting the season with an eight-race drought Fernando Alonso has now logged two consecutive points finishes, and the signs are that there’s more to come.
The Spaniard followed up his ninth in Spain with a seventh in Canada last weekend as best of the rest behind the top four teams.
It’s clear now that Aston Martin has made a decent step since its last batch of upgrades, and that it is back in the midfield fight.
However while the team has improved the AMR25 over one lap Alonso is still keen to improve race day performance. which he believes hasn’t kept up with progress in qualifying.
As in Imola in Montreal Alonso followed a strategy of focussing on the medium C5 tyre through qualifying, rather than the slightly less predictable C6.
He was P6 in Saturday’s FP3 session, and then with a display of remarkable consistency he maintained that position through Q1, Q2 and crucially, Q3.
“Let’s do it tomorrow!,” he said after the session when I drew his attention to the stats. “We are happy. Obviously, Norris is P7, Leclerc P8, so it’s a little bit unrealistic to think that we will finish in P6. But the job today has been done.
“A very tricky FP3 session with the wind direction change today, it was for everybody. A lot of people oversteering, especially in the last corner with the tailwind and things like that. So we changed the car a little bit into qualifying, and it was back to normal in quali. So happy for that.
“It seems that I’m able to push the car to the limit now in the last few races, since Imola. With the new package, I’m much more linked with the car, I feel the car, and I can push to the maximum. And I feel in a good moment. So let’s confirm it tomorrow.”
Although the C5 strategy clearly worked Alonso insisted that pursuing it was not a no-brainer before the session.
“In Imola, we had the feeling that the C5 especially on our car gave us the confidence to push a little bit more. And then in Monaco, it was 50-50, and then here still 50-50.
“Even after qualifying, I think we’re still not sure which tyre, because some people are faster on the red tyre than the medium. But we still believe that on our car is a little bit more robust with the medium.”
For the race his focus was to lead the pursuit of the top teams – and crucially for the midfield battle in the World Championship, beat the Saubers.
“Normally on Sunday we do struggle a little bit more than Saturday,” he admitted. “And as I said, we have very fast cars behind us. So yeah, P8/P9 – we need points, that’s for sure. We want to be in the top 10 tomorrow, especially after Nico [Hulkenberg] scored so many points in Barcelona.
“We are tied with Sauber now, but behind them [on best result], and we want to go back to be at least in front of them by tomorrow afternoon. That’s a personal challenge now.”
Regarding the ultimate potential he added: “It depends on what is happening in front of us. There are many races that all the top teams are finishing the race. Maybe tomorrow is the day that there are a couple of DNFs…”
In the end he only had one helping hand from a retirement ahead, but other than that, it went to plan.
As he expected Norris and Leclerc soon found a way past, and then having lost out to Hulkenberg he did what he needed to do and got back ahead before the flag on his way to seventh – enough to put Aston two points ahead of Sauber in the World Championship.
“I think realistically on the pace, we knew that eighth maybe was the maximum,” he said when I asked about his afternoon. “And we were eighth until Lando had the DNF, and then it became seventh.
“Happy with the car. I mean, I didn’t have any big issues with the car, apart from maybe excessive tyre deg, but still Sunday pace is not quite yet in the rhythm I think of the weekend.
“We are sometimes one or two tenths away from the top teams in qualifying, and then we are one minute away, in the race. So definitely, Sunday is still our weak point on the weekend, and we need to make some maybe set-up work or priority into Sunday for the next few races.”
With 14 races to go just eight points separate Haas, Racing Bulls, Aston Martin and Sauber, and Alpine is only 11 points adrift in last place. There’s a lot to play for.
“When I saw Nico in front of us, and 10 laps to go, and I said, ‘Wow.’ It was very competitive. And the Sauber clearly made a step forward. So we need to keep the pace. If not, we will lose again the position soon.
“But at the same time, we are getting closer to Haas, closer to Racing Bulls. It’s going to be a nice battle, until Abu Dhabi.”
Adam Cooper F1 