“With Max out, George on the podium” – Fernando Alonso rues missing out on podium after crashing in Australian GP qualifying

“With Max out, George on the podium” – Fernando Alonso crashed out in Q3 on Saturday and was unfortunate to miss out on points on Australian GP Sunday.

Fernando Alonso was looking good on Saturday in Melbourne’s Albert Park, making it to Q3 with relative ease. It all went downhill from there, though, as an apparent hydraulics issue meant he crashed, qualifying only P10. 

The two-time champion started the race brightly the following day, making it as up as P4. But an ill-time safety car on lap 23 meant he, racing on hard tyres, lost ground to the ones on mediums.

Well, I’m also an Alonso fan, so I hope he can gift us some surprising moments as he so so closely did in Melbourne. Perhaps Alpine could be the ‘joker’ team like McLaren was last year. I don’t particularly trust Alpine, but maybe they could do that. #F1

— Daniele Leocata (@DaniLeo_Racing) April 12, 2022

To end things worse for him, he had to pit twice – Lap 39 and 53 – ensuring he finishes P17, last amongst the finishers. No wonder he’s distraught, considering Alpine had the pace to launch a podium challenge…

“We were looking for P6 or P7 starting on the hard tyre on the reverse [strategy]. [But] the safety car in the wrong moment of the race was our killer.

“I’m a little bit speechless because I think today we could have been on the podium, to be honest. If we qualified third or fourth yesterday with Max out, George on the podium, I think we’ve been a little bit faster than the Mercedes this weekend. So we lost an opportunity here and also in Jeddah when we were doing a very good race.

“So it seems the way it is at the moment, a little bit unlucky, so 20 races to go, in some of them I will be super lucky, I guess.”

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Subham Jindal

A Red - be it Manchester United or Ferrari. Hails from the hills of Kalimpong, Darjeeling. Aspiring to become a respected Sports Management professional.

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