Alonso admits Emilia Romagna GP was ‘most boring race ever’
Sunday’s Emilia Romagna GP wasn't exactly the pinnacle of excitement for Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
The 42-year-old F1 veteran trudged across the finish line at Imola in a lowly 19th place, marking his worst ever finish in F1.
It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows leading up to the race either. Qualifying was a disaster for Alonso who was left stranded in Q1 following an off-track excursion and an issue on his AMR24 that halted his session.
Aston Martin subsequently opted to pull the Spaniard’s car out of parc fermé to implement set-up changes for the race, which equated to a pitlane start.
Stuck at the back of the field, Alonso eventually ran as high as P15, the two-time world champion desperately hoping for a safety car to shake up proceedings, but to no avail.
“It’s that kind of weekend where it’s a little bit frustrating that on the race you know more or less what is going to happen,” the Aston charger commented after the race.
“You obviously hope for some Safety Cars or red flags or something that can mix a little bit the race. But, today as usual when we start at the back at zero, the most boring race ever.”
With Alonso facing a 63-lap test session at Imola rather than a proper motor race, Aston chose to experiment with a different set-up on the Spaniard’s car compared to teammate Lance Stroll.
The Spaniard reckons the data will prove useful moving forward.
“We need to wait and see all the data that we’ve gathered today and ask the team what they saw different between the two cars,” he explained.
“We opted for two set-ups, different on my car, and let’s see if we find our direction for the next few races.
“It was a tough weekend. Obviously, qualifying dictates everything here. It will be the same in Monaco. So we need to do that perfect Saturday that obviously makes things easier for Sunday.”
Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack commended Alonso for playing “the team game perfectly” by pitting early on lap 8 to force Stroll’s rivals to do the same while the Canadian ran a long first stint on the medium tyre.
“Lance made his one-stop race work with a long first stint, while Fernando’s early pit stop on lap eight helped draw several cars in for early stops,” said Krack.
“Lance was then able to make strong overtakes into turn one on Hulkenberg and Tsunoda to secure P9. It was not easy to overtake, so it was great to watch Lance making those moves.
“It was always going to be difficult for Fernando to progress to the points after the difficult qualifying, but he played the team game perfectly.”
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