Alonso would not have finished pole position in qualifying

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Alpine driver Fernando Alonso is mourning a missed opportunity after finishing 17th in the race in Melbourne. While the Spaniard loudly declared after qualifying that a first place would have been possible for him, he was “silent” after the race, as Verstappen’s loss could easily have put him on the podium without problems in qualifying.

His colleague Esteban Ocon, who ended up in seventh place, notes that Alonso’s comments went beyond the target: “In qualifying, the first five result would have been realistic. We were very competitive in the second sector, but in the last sector we had the biggest problems as a team.”

Alonso was slightly ahead of post-column designer Charles Leclerc on the flying lap in the third quarter after the first two sectors, but crashed before the third sector due to a hydraulic issue. However, from Ocon’s comments, it can be concluded that Alonso would have lost the lead in the Alpine trouble sector anyway, especially since Leclerc was able to significantly increase his lap time at the second attempt.

Leclerc is seven tenths faster than Alonso in the third sector

This is also in line with sector data from the second quarter. In the third division, Leclerc was three tenths faster than the Spaniard. If you take Leclerc on the first lap of the third qualifying segment, it’s up to seven tenths.

According to Ocon, it was not possible to achieve more than 5 results for Alpine in the race either. “Wherever you start racing here, that’s where you’ll end too,” says the Frenchman. With seventh place, Ocon was able to collect more points for the team and thus cemented its seventh position as “best among the rest” in the drivers’ championship.

Still, he has mixed feelings about the Australian weekend race as “qualification was the deciding factor” for the race. There he was only able to score the eighth fastest because he didn’t feel comfortable in the car.

According to Akon, that hasn’t changed in the race either. “We made a decision on the direction of construction on Friday night and it did not come to fruition,” the Frenchman said. Under these conditions, seventh place is still a “decent result”.

During the race, the Alpine Command Center also told him to use “lift and coast” because his car was overheating after “25 to 30 laps on the DRS”. According to Ocon, this didn’t cost any time, because he wanted to let Alexander Albon fall behind anyway, because he still had to change tires anyway.