Alonso and his team were let down by a part for 1.5 euros

Before qualifying in Melbourne, Fernando Alonso assumed the Alpine car would allow him to compete, if not for pole, then for the front two rows of the grid. Pat Fry, head of the team’s technical department, was in the same mood, predicting that the two-time world champion would show a third or fourth result on Saturday.

The quick lap in the qualifying final, in which the Spaniard’s A522 suffered a hydraulic problem, was indeed fast enough that had Fernando crossed the finish line he would have started from a higher position than the Mercedes drivers.

And if everything went according to this scenario, Alonso could very well have climbed onto the podium after Max Verstappen’s departure from the Australian Grand Prix.

However, events turned out differently: all the measures the team took after the problem that prevented Fernando from qualifying only exacerbated the situation.

“I just don’t have words for it,” the Spaniard admitted after the race. – I hardly realize that everything has gone wrong in general. After Max’s departure it was quite possible to climb the podium. George Russell finished third, but I think we were much faster than Mercedes at this track. Overall, we missed this opportunity.”

The team explained that the cause of the problem that caused the hydraulic system to fail during qualifying was due to a leaking oil seal. According to experts, this part costs about 1.5 euros.

Otmar Szafnauer, team leader, confirmed that this was because of this fateful oil seal: “The oil seal was damaged, the oil was leaking. When the oil pressure drops, safe mode is activated, which in the event of a failure tries to save the engine – this is exactly what happened. The repair consisted in that this seal had to be replaced.

Safnauer is well aware that the team paid a very high price for this small detail: “If we had shown the result in qualifying that we could show, the race for Fernando would have been very different.

He would then have started on Medium tires like all the other drivers around him, and he would not have been surprised by the appearance of the safety car, and would have had a good chance of competing with the drivers at the top. four.

Instead, Alonso started tenth on a set of hard tires and stayed in that position early in the race, driving ahead of Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri. Fernando assumed the Hard tires would allow him to hold out until the 42-lap stop, despite the race distance being 58 laps.

But on lap 23, due to Sebastian Vettel’s accident, the safety car left the track, all the gaps were closed and the peloton condensed. Alpine was unable to make a pit stop in that situation, as the Medium tires would not have survived the remaining 35 laps.

Alonso stayed on track and at one point reached 4th position as other riders went for fresh tyres, after which he became easy prey for rivals. However, he was not much faster than Kevin Magnussen, who was offered the same tactic in Haas F1, ie he also started on the hard set. Fernando couldn’t break free from the Dane.

When Verstappen retired on lap 39, Alpine called Alonso to the pits. He rolled back to 14th position but couldn’t break through although he tried to do something but this only caused intense tire wear. It all ended with Alpine deciding to make another pit stop shortly before the finish, leaving the Spaniard in last.

“We had a series of four cars ahead of us and everyone could use DRS,” Fernando explained angrily. – If they drove one by one, they could be overtaken. But when there are four of them and everyone drives with the DRS open, there’s nothing more that can be done and we just busted the tires.

At the same time, the Williams team acted differently: Alex Albon started last on the same set of Hard, but took care of the tires and made a pit stop on the penultimate lap when he was already in 7th position. He returned to the track in tenth and rounded out the top ten at the finish. If Alpine had used the same tactics, Alonso would have been in his place.

“What surprised me was not that the Williams scored a point, but the pace Albon was able to maintain on tires that had already completed 57 laps,” said Safnauer. “This will be a lesson for us. It turned out that even after so many laps the tires were in good condition. Alex continued to set a good time. But Fernando got stuck behind other cars, his Medium tires were worn and we had to make a pit stop. to make.

Williams did the right thing. If we behaved like Albon, we could end up ahead of him. But if you’re way ahead, you make different decisions, make a pit stop and get into different positions.

Decisions are made based on the information available to you at any given time. And predicting the future is very difficult.”

Source: F1 News

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