The disaster for Alonso is greater: problem with the Honda engine in Baku
He F1 Azerbaijan GP It was already a tough weekend before it started for Fernando Alonso. But the first day of free practice in Baku It made a complicated weekend without any options start in an even more cruel and disastrous way for him.
Fernando Alonso I already knew that I was going to suffer a lot on the long straights of this street circuit, especially the longest on the calendar, 2.2 kilometers. All due to the enormous lack of power of the Honda engine, which was going to weigh it down and leave it without any option to aspire to anything other than the rear. Without being able to attack or defend.
For this reason, Aston Martin decided to take advantage of this weekend to install more new elements in the power unit and thus serve a sanction this weekend, where whatever the Asturian did he was going to be at the back of the grid. He will leave from there after that penalty. And in this context, the only objective of the man from Oviedo should be to continue working on engine drivability and experimenting with settingss of the car to accumulate data and understanding of a car that in Baku arrive with a significant weight loss. But he ran into more problems.
In Free Practice 1, the Asturian was already making strange movements with his hands due to the vibrations of the steering wheel. Ago was not going well, although he later returned to the track without apparent problems. But what was seen in Free Practice 2 was more worrying. There, after only 9 laps, Fernando had to stay in the pits and miss a large part of the FP2 run-in due to an oil leak in the new engine he had installed.
In the garage, a mechanic Honda removed the remaining oil with a hydraulic pump. And under the floor of the car, clear stains in the workshop due to that setback. One more failure that comes on a weekend that already looked bad, and now looks even worse. An undeserved torture for the man from Oviedo, who remains like a caged lion inside a car propelled by an engine that still does not work as it should.
Huge lack of speed in the Honda engine
The numbers don’t lie. Alonso set a maximum speed of 311 km/h at the detection point in Free Practice 2, far from the fastest at that point, Hadjar, with 339 km/hbut also the third slowest driver at that point, Piastri, with 322 km/h. It’s as if you were driving a lower category car.
Mercedes starts commanding
Mercedes started the F1 Azerbaijan GP dominating, without apparently rivals. They are favorites, but their superiority in qualifying is not expected to be what was seen after a first day in which few conclusions could be drawn, full of problems and errors, with the drivers trying to get closer and closer to the walls of a track that was still very green.
For now, in that contextGeorge Russell dominated with a 1’43″347, with an unreal advantage of half a second over the World Cup leader, his teammate Kimi Antonelli, and no less than 8 tenths compared to Max Verstappen (3rd).
Kimi, for his part, saw his filming on that day very limited due to a mid-session problem with his Mercedes engine, with a hydraulic failure that also made him start late for Free Practice 2. But it wasn’t the only problem of the day.
The McLarens suffered setbacks in Free Practice 1, Lindblad slightly touched the wall in Free Practice 1 and ended with an accident and red flag in FP2 and many errors were seen, with drivers beginning to look for the limits and make excursions in the loopholes or brushing (even lightly kissing) the walls
Fourth was Charles Leclerc, first Ferrari at 1’126, followed by Hamilton (5th) at 1’3, with Lando Norris in sixth position at 1’484. and a Pierre Gasly’s Alpine (7th at 1″4) who after surprising him with his enormous top speed in a turn at Monza should be at the top. Nobody believes that the times seen this Friday are representative.
There is still a lot of fabric to be cut and everything should be much more even this Saturday, in an always vibrant classification between walls in the city of fire, where a mistake can cause red flags and interruptions, and where the slipstreams on the 2.2 km straight will be essential.
Sainz starts away
In that battle, equality is expected in the middle zone. After the greats and Gasly’s Alpine, Ocon was 10th at 1.9, with Colapinto two tenths away (11th). He was far from that fight for the moment Williamswhich comes with a new package of improvements, especially with less weight. Sainz was 17th at 2″8, 9 tenths from 10th place.
