Fernando Alonso’s radio conversation with his engineer towards the end of Q2 was probably one of the highlights of an otherwise fantastic qualifying session in Hungary.
All drivers were struggling to up the pace towards the end of Q2, especially in the last sector where the track was so wet that it was impossible to maintain any kind of speed on the corners.
Drivers were forced to take the wide, conservative line and hence just couldn’t build on their lap times.
With just a few minutes to go for the Q2 to end, Alonso’s engineer asked him if he wanted to stay on with the inters or switch to the full wet tyres.
Alonso, the realist that he is, tried explaining to his engineer that there was no point of having this discussion, as no matter what tyre they used, there was no way they could move from 11th to 10th.
McLaren Team Radio: “Fernando, do you want new inters or wets?”
Alonso: “I think we should go to the garage… I dunno mate. Put whatever tyre you want. Even if you put a rocket ship, we will stay P11”
Alonso has now come out and slammed FOM for broadcasting his private conversation with the team.
“It was again another radio [call] that FOM is broadcasting. That is their favourite hobby so good luck to them. I don’t really understand the meaning.
“What is strange when you are on track and the last sector is super wet, you cannot improve any more probably in the last sector. So you know you have a normal conversation, private conversation with the team if it’s worth doing another lap with extreme or not.
“At the end we attempted to do another lap with extreme. They seemed to have fun on that but it’s annoying sometimes.” Alonso said.
Alonso was more than satisfied with how qualifying panned out today, as he felt that McLaren wouldn’t have managed P11 if the conditions were dry.
“In the first attempt we were P11 which I consider quite lucky already because in dry we were fighting for Q1.
“Already in Q1 we saw the track was getting better and better and some fast cars like [Charles] Leclerc and other guys were out in Q1. We got lucky there, lucky also in Q2.
“P11 is close to the points, here qualifying in the position at the start of the race is quite important and I think we are further up than we hoped.” Alonso concluded.
