‘I knew there was some risk’ – Alonso explains why Aston Martin’s pace dropped off in Sao Paulo GP

Fernando Alonso was left to reflect on a fruitless Sao Paulo Grand Prix where he failed to score for Aston Martin, coming home in 14th place. He did at least beat his team mate Lance Stroll, who finished in P16 after two lots of contact during the race.

It was a far cry from what the team had hoped for when they qualified both cars in the top seven for the Sprint, with Alonso going on to score with sixth place. But their pace went away from them when qualifying for the Grand Prix, with both failing to earn a berth in Q3.

Both drivers gambled on a hard tyre for the start, but the unfavoured C2 compound did not come into its own under higher fuel loads, which did not help their cause. But Alonso remained upbeat with the strategy calls regardless of how they panned out.

“We tried with a hard tyre at the start. I was happy to risk a little bit,” the Spaniard explained.

“I knew that there was some risk on the strategy, but if we do the same as the others, then we just follow each other and probably, we would just finish behind them, so we tried something different. It didn’t work, but at least we tried.”

Alonso came home in a DRS train, right on the tail of Carlos Sainz, who at that point in time was on the same medium compound.

When asked what changed across the weekend in terms of Aston Martin’s pace, the former World Champion was less concerned with his own team – but rather looked externally to the rest of the field.

“I think the others got everything together and it is going to be the same in Qatar. Friday will be our best day.”

As for Stroll, he had a torrid first lap. First, he made contact with Gabriel Bortoleto, and was fortunate not to crash out like his rival did. He was then hit from behind by Yuki Tsunoda and tagged into a spin for good measure, which dropped him off the back of the pack.

In the end, he two-stopped his way to a dispiriting P16 finish.

“We lost a lot of time at the beginning when I got hit by Yuki. I lost like 15 seconds and then that was kind of the end of the race. We tried to come back but we lost a lot of time there,” the Canadian explained.

“We were more competitive in the Sprint, then in normal Qualifying and the main race, we were less competitive, so we’ll see what we can do in a couple of weeks in Las Vegas.”

Aston Martin remain seventh in the Teams’ Championship, but they are now 10 points behind Racing Bulls.