“We lost a little bit too much ground with McLaren”– Fernando Alonso on Alpine’s head to head competition against McLaren for P3 in championship

Tanish Chachra | 15/08/2021
"We lost a little bit too much ground with McLaren"– Fernando Alonso on Alpine's head to head competition against McLaren for P3 in championship

 “We lost a little bit too much ground with McLaren”– Fernando Alonso draws head to head comparison against McLaren amidst current competition.

The midfield battle in Formula 1 is once again too tough, and Alpine is making long strides towards a successful year; the result in Hungary couldn’t get better for them, as they really seem to vie against McLaren and Ferrari this year.

Though, Fernando Alonso has conceded that his team has lost ground against McLaren in an attempt to replicate their last year’s own achievements.

“I think the expectations or our ambitions at the beginning of the year was to repeat what Renault was able to do last year,” he told selected media, including Motorsport.com.

“Having in mind that Ferrari had a very strange 2020 season with quite low performance, we were expecting that maybe Ferrari was ahead of us. But it’s true as well that we lost a little bit too much ground with McLaren.”

“That Renault was fighting with McLaren until the last race last year and we are not able to do that this year.”

Gaining against Mercedes and Red Bull

Alonso has insisted that his team has narrowed the gap against Mercedes and Red Bull, and the 2022 regulations will provide them new opportunities.

“Looking and analysing all the numbers in a way, we reduced the gap with Mercedes and with some of the opposition,” Alonso added. “So even if we are P7 in the constructors’ championship, we reduced the gap with the leaders and that’s how tight everything became.”

“From ninth to the top, everyone is closer. The same with Aston Martin, Racing Point last year was fighting for podiums and even won one Grand Prix and this year we are closer to them.

“So yeah, it was a bit up and down for all the teams, for us as well, but unfortunately we lost a couple of positions in the constructors’ championship because the three teams that finished behind Renault last year are the three teams that have improved most.”

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
Alpine Fernando Alonso McLaren

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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