Alonso: “Lewis is very smart and has a lot of experience, but I have more”

After his second pit stop at the Abu Dhabi GP, Fernando Alonso returned in the Aston Martin AMR23 ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes W14. The Englishman approached the Spaniard, but then Alonso got onto the ideal line (on the right side of the track before the upcoming left-hand bend) and seemed to let off the gas.

This surprised Hamilton, and the Englishman radioed that Alonso had subjected him to the famous brake test, an antiquated braking tactic once used by motorists to “cut off the air” from younger drivers. The stewards examined the incident for possible dangerous driving by the Spaniard, but concluded that there was no reason for a penalty.

After the left-hand turn, Hamilton overtook Alonso using DRS, but later in the race the Spaniard overtook the Englishman again and eventually finished two places ahead of him as he also overtook Yuki Tsunoda’s Alpha Tauri – something he attempted unsuccessfully. and Lewis at the end.

Speaking about the incident after the race, Alonso explained that he had taken his foot off the accelerator at that point to allow Hamilton to get past him, so the Spaniard hit the long straight after the left-hand hairpin he was heading towards DRS would have an advantage.

When Alonso was asked about the brake testing charge that had hit him, the Spaniard replied: “Lewis is obviously very intelligent and understands the sport very well and has a lot of experience, but I have more.”

When asked if he was surprised by Hamilton’s comment, the 42-year-old said “Yes and no. We did the same thing in Canada in 2012, so 11 years after that episode we tried to give that DRS to the other driver who was braking for Turn 5. I ended up winning both times, so it’s okay.”

With his 7th place, Alonso secured 4th place in the Drivers’ Championship, behind Hamilton but ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz – in an Aston Martin that in the last two thirds of the year had nothing to do with the protagonist of the first eight games had to do with some lightning.

One of these flares did not occur in Abu Dhabi today, and Alonso commented: “We needed a lot more speed to overtake, we were a bit slow on the straights, which is our weakness all year.” Around lap 16 we made our first pit stop and from then on we knew the race was going to be tough.

In the end our pace was only enough for seventh or eighth place. As I said yesterday, our qualifying lap was very good for the position we ended up winning, but the pace of the race worried us. We saw that today. We were as good as we needed to be to win Alpha Tauri, but that’s not enough”concluded Alonso.