3 details that prevented Alonso from fighting for 33rd place in Canada

Aston Martin has taken a big step forward with a big package of evolutions unveiled at this launch. Canadian F1 GP And this has allowed Fernando Alonso to recreate what he has been unable to achieve so far this year: rhythm. Max Verstappen And sometimes he recorded faster laps than the Dutch. “Red Bull was not far away”, Alonso pointed out. And indeed, in one of the radios with the team, his engineer clearly stated: “I want to win this race, buddy.” Fernando was closer than ever in terms of race pace, with the exception of Monaco, where he had a great chance of achieving his 33rd F1 victory. Who knows if he could have finally beaten the great Max at the helm of the best car on the grid, but the truth is that the reigning champions, in a session on medium rubber, had a good run with Alonso. It means that I was losing commas every lap in comparison. Max said he had no grip, probably due to the cold asphalt, he said after the race. There may be a final battle, but the attack changed everything. Hamilton entered the pits, after which a ‘false alarm’ occurred in the fuel system.

These were the details that kept Alonso from battling Max for victory in Canada:

Battle with Hamilton

“I was hoping I could face the Red Bulls more, but I lost position to Lewis at the start and had to fight them,” Alonso said. That meant a fight with Verstappen. He had to focus on defending his second-place position with Lewis instead of just thinking about the more difficult look of beating Verstappen. That detail defined the race. On the 40th lap, Alonso shortened the time with each lap while Max was struggling with hard tires with low grip. Alonso closed the gap to 4.7 inches by five seconds. But then Lewis Hamilton, who was about four inches behind Fernando, pitted for an ‘undercut’ and started the attack.

Aston Martin had to make a decision. Either go on the next lap and prevent Hamilton’s pit attack, or extend the pit stop as planned and attack Max. The first option was much safer. In the second time, it is possible to lose 2nd place. They chose to defend against Hamilton. That all changed as Fernando Alonso took a worse tire strategy, which is the next point of analysis.
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If he hadn’t had to fight Hamilton, Alonso might have extended his stint to try and pressure Max Verstappen into a corner. And Alonso could have attacked on soft tires and finished the race. he couldn’t do it.

There were no other medium new tires

Problems arose when Fernando Alonso entered the pits to prevent Hamilton from attacking. The fastest tire on the track was the medium. Verstappen and Hamilton were on the new medium tyres, Alonso was not. Fernando was forced to run on hard tyres. In this way, since he closes Verstappen when Verstappen is on the hard tyres, Max and Hamilton are both on the medium tyres, while Alonso finishes booking on the hard tyres. was put at a rubber disadvantage. With no option to attack Max, he had to work hard to defend his second position.

Possible fuel system problem

On lap 48, Fernando Alonso revealed over the radio that the team had asked him to reserve petrol, which cost him a crucial tenth of a second per lap and prevented him from continuing to attack Max Verstappen. . It was already after the second stop and the tires were worse than Max. This prevented him from continuing to try to hug the champion.

Fernando Alonso was forced to apply ‘lift and coast’ techniques to secure petrol. “Please let me know when ‘Lift & Coast’ is OK. I want to stop it,” the Asturian native told the engineer. “Yes I do, but please keep doing it,” they replied from the wall. “I want to win the race, buddy,” said Fernando when he was five seconds behind Max.
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However, Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Clack has clarified that it could all be a false alarm, stating: “We thought there was a small problem with the fuel system, so we decided to make sure it wasn’t a risk. Maybe it was a false alarm,” he said. The misinformation forced Alonso to slow down and at the end was able to push again to defend second place against Hamilton’s pace, who was on better rubber.