Motorsports
Alonso: “I hope we will challenge Max a bit more next time”
Fernando Alonso said he was told by Aston Martin to stop pushing at the end of the Canadian GP apparently because of the brake problem and that gave him hope he could draw closer to the mighty Red Bull in two weeks’ time in Austria.
Alonso clinched his sixth podium in eight races of this year’s Formula One Championship at the Canadian Grand Prix after battling with Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for second place on the podium, from which he emerged victorious.
After losing second place to Lewis early on, the Spaniard regained it by passing the Brit on lap 22 of the race and opening a relevant advantage. But a brake problem forced him to slow his pace, allowing Hamilton to get back to within 1.3 inches.
In the end, Alonso managed to keep second place and said he had more speed than the Aston Martin AMR23 could show: “We were hoping to put a little more pressure on Red Bull, but we lost a place to Lewis at the start.”“, emphasized the 42-year-old.
“Then we got into a fight with Mercedes and Lewis kept pushing the whole race so I didn’t have a single lap where I could relax a bit. It was an incredible fight. At the beginning I had a bit more speed “In the end Lewis had a bit more speed. It was hard. A very demanding race, 70 laps today at qualifying pace,” he added.
Regarding the danger at Red Bull, the Spaniard concluded: “I felt the car was fine. But I was just following the instructions. Hopefully that means we’re a bit quicker, so next time we want to put a little more pressure on Max.”
For his part, Hamilton, who finished behind Verstappen in the last race in Spain in the heavily revised Mercedes W14, explained: “Unfortunately we didn’t have the necessary speed today. We knew that this track wasn’t one of our strongest because we had problems, especially in the slow corners.”
That’s where I basically lost most of the time on Fernando and Max, on the exits of Turn 2 and everything else. We still have a lot of work to do to add lift to the rear of the car and increase the power a bit, but I think we’ll get there in time.” added the seven-time F1 champion.
“Max was otherwise a bit lost on the horizon. Aston has taken a step forward in these three days with the addition of the upgrades. We are working to bring a few more and keep going. To have the stability that we had with the podium and here in Montreal.”concluded the Mercedes driver.
Source: sport 24
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