Fernando Alonso under maximum pressure. At the Canadian Grand Prix, the Asturian driver once again demonstrated that the significant improvement in the Aston Martin is real and that it is now becoming commonplace to see him fighting in Q3. So much so that, although he has always been motivated, in Montreal he looked very hungry in the middle of the race.
Fernando Alonso hoped to be “4th or 5th at the end of the race, but the FIA wasn’t up for it
This weekend, after scoring his first points in Spain, the two-time champion finished seventh in the race with a good haul of points under his belt. It was a race that gave further signs that the AMR25 is growing considerably.
The Asturian had a great first half of the race, following Lewis Hamilton from sixth position, but his team ordered him to stop on lap 16, putting him in traffic. The driver had to overtake seven cars on the track to get back into the points after another somewhat questionable strategy by the team.
It was a race in which, in the end, the Asturian thought he might be able to pick up a few more points than sixth place in Canada, especially as many (including himself) predicted that this time the FIA would comply with the rules and penalize drivers who broke the rules under the Safety Car at the end of the race.
Alonso remembered Hamilton
This was because the accident involving Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri led to a safety car that triggered a flurry of investigations into various irregularities by a large number of drivers.
One of these actions was the new ‘little game’ between George Russell and Max Verstappen, first and second respectively, which opened the field for penalties after a collision between the two:
With both drivers annoyed by the Safety Car, Russell braked sharply and Max Verstappen was unable to avoid overtaking him, as he was driving almost parallel. The former complained about illegal overtaking, the latter about erratic driving. In the end, neither received a penalty… but it was enough for Fernando Alonso to explode once again against a Lewis Hamilton lacking in insight.
This happened in the final moments of a race that would end under this symptom. At that point, faced with the possibility of penalties at the front of the race, Alonso tried to maximize his chances of regaining a few more positions by sticking as close as possible to Hamilton, who finished sixth, just ahead of him.
The Aston Martin driver tried to stay close to the cars in front in case any penalties were handed out.
“Do your best to stay close, in case there are any penalties.” Alonso tried… but not everyone on the track was up to the task. Much to the annoyance of the Aston Martin driver, Lewis Hamilton was slow to take advantage of the situation. This left him with a wide margin over the driver ahead of him, his teammate Charles Leclerc.
“Are we within five seconds?” asked the Spaniard at the end. “Yes.” And then came his most pointed message of the day, with a name attached: “Interesting… interesting people ahead or not? Hamilton missed the class on staying close to the car in front,” he said over the radio after seeing the Ferrari driver drop out of the leading group in the final laps.
The balance for Alonso was positive: “We executed well, especially yesterday. So let’s go for the next one.” With these six points, Aston Martin overtakes Sauber in the World Championship and Fernando Alonso reaffirms that, when the car is even slightly on his side, he is still the best on and off the track.
Hamilton and his free ‘dig’ at the Spaniard: “As Fernando was the world champion, he always had the lightest car.”
These words (and message) from the Asturian driver came just a few days after Hamilton took a free shot at his former McLaren teammate from 2007.
The Briton recalled his first Formula 1 victory, which was in 2007 at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit. He won there seven times, three with the Woking team and four with Mercedes. That year, he was locked in a fierce battle with the Spaniard, which ended with Alonso leaving the team at the end of the season after several public clashes with Hamilton.
According to Lewis, Fernando, as world champion, raced with certain advantages and he had to deal with them until he could beat him once they were on equal terms.
“My first victory was epic. At the time, the two cars were separated by a couple of laps in terms of fuel load, so one car always had less fuel, was lighter, and as Fernando was the world champion, he always had the lighter car,” said the now Ferrari driver.
“I was carrying a tenth or more of fuel in every qualifying session. I asked from Monaco that we be given the same conditions, we got them in Canada, I took pole and won the race. I fought for what I believed was right and it was one of my greatest moments,” added the seven-time champion, trying to emphasize that with the same weapons he was able to beat the two-time champion. It seems that Alonso does not think the same…