Fernando Alonso: “When I abandon the race the race doesn’t stop, but Hamilton was in the ditch and there was stress and they stopped so he could get back out. A little strange. They will have to explain it”

“They’ll have to explain it.” That’s how forceful it seemed Fernando Alonso before the Spanish press, as reported by present media such as ‘Diario AS’, when the Asturian referred to the initial absurdity of the Bahrain Grand Prix held in Malaysia this Sunday.

On the formation lap, after a 40-minute wait due to a strong storm, something very strange was seen: several cars stopped, including Hamilton’s Ferrari, due to a software problem. Different engines, various Ferrari, one from Red Bull-Ford, one from Audi and also Norris’ Mercedes engine They suffered the same setback and could not accelerate. Some of them were left standing on the track, having to restart the car.

Therefore, the departure procedure was canceled and postponed until later. Hamilton had already lost all positions, but the most unusual thing was to see how the race direction assured that the race would start with the previous order, established in qualifying. That is, Hamilton returned to 2nd place.

Fernando Alonso, after his great comeback to eighth place in a race of pure endurance and resiliencewas critical of what happened and I didn’t understand how a driver who had to abandon the formation lap could finally start the race from his starting place. I didn’t understand why the date had to stop before it started.

“They will have to explain it, because I have had abandonments in half of the races this year and the race was never stopped because we abandoned.”commented in ‘Diario AS’.

“Hamilton was in the ditch and there was stress, the race had to be stopped for him to start again. I have had abandonments in half of the races this year and the race was never stopped because we abandoned” (the FIA). “Too much technology that the viewer does not appreciate either”pointed out the alleged software problems, which the FIA ​​later confirmed had to do with them and not with the teams.

Nevertheless, Nicholas Tombazis, technical director of the FIAexplained the reason for what happened. From their statements to ‘DAZN’, it seems that they made the decision to stop and reestablish the original order of the race because the problem was caused by FIA software that is used only in rain and that all teams were obliged to use. That system failed, and since it was the fault of the FIA ​​and not the teams, the original order of the grid was returned.

The FIA’s explanation

“There are special settings in the software for rainy conditions, for safety reasons, to prevent those power spikes, and all the cars had to use that setting today because it was wet conditions,” commented Tombazis.

“There has been an error in the software and that has meant that the cars, when they were going at very low speed, could not accelerate again. Some cars on the formation lap have been extremely slow, and a domino effect has occurred: some cars almost stopped and that caused the error. That is why some cars have suffered it and others have not: that is why we raised the red flag. It was not the fault of the teams and we will have to make updates to those configurations and the software and we will give them to the teams for whom they were issued. install in their cars,” argued Tombazis.

Fernando’s run

Alonso managed to climb back to 8th place in a race in which everything seemed to have been lost from the start. The Asturian was one of those who took a risk by putting on a dry tire at the start, with the asphalt wet. The track was wetter than it seemed and that benefited the many drivers who started with medium rubber and the Spaniard also wore medium rubber. which made things very complicated for him in such delicate conditions.

But he remained calm. He knew that at some point, some safety car would bring him back into the battle. He remained confident, as he acknowledged after the race before the international press, as reported by the ‘Motorsport.com’ portal.

“I knew I had to be there, try to be on the lead lap and wait for a safety car, which in the end came,” argument. “In these races there is always a safety car. When the track is delicate, some are on dry tyres, others are on intermediates.“There will always be some incident, something will always happen and everything regroups at some point in the race.”Fernando explained.

And so it was. He made the most of his options, executed the strategy perfectly and overtook Stroll, Ocon and Lindblad on the track to get into the points zone. There, he gained two positions due to Russell’s abandonment and a mistake by Lando Norris that left the world champion just behind Fernando.

With a superior car like the McLaren, it seemed clear that Lando could surpass the Spaniard, especially due to his greater speed on a straight line compared to a less powerful Honda engine. But there, Fernando once again brought out his masterful reading of the race and intelligence to use the battery on the straights and defend that eighth place against the current champion.

“I think when you get into Lando (Norris) type trouble with Nico (Hülkenberg), that They ran out of battery… I spent two laps charging it. I had the battery fully charged for two laps and was using it on the straights. I think they are also circumstances that help you or don’t help you if you manage to understand and read them in the race.”he revealed, about the way he managed to contain Lando, using cunning.

Despite this, Fernando Alonso puts homework on Aston Martin, since he did not feel completely comfortable with his car. According to ‘AS’, the driver from Oviedo suffered oversteer, especially in turn 4, although it mattered little, because it was where he made part of his overtaking. However, Alonso believes that the team must improve in aspects like this.

“Good for the result, but we still have to work,” he explained. “I expected a little more performance in the race. We were going well, but there was a lot of oversteer. We adjusted the front wing a little, but we have to work”he said in ‘AS’.