Fernando Alonso: “It’s disappointing. We lack downforce and perhaps that is a big penalty, and we still lack power for the straights”

It had to be the great opportunity of the year for Fernando Alonso. Aston Martin and the driver himself pointed to Singapore as the route that should best suit his car on the entire calendar because of the lack of power in his engine. Sling It wasn’t going to be such a big burden compared to other circuits. But the moment of truth arrived, and the car did not meet expectations.

Fernando Alonso passed without problems to the SQ2but in that second part of the short classification, despite improving his previous record by three tenths, he could only be 15thfar from fighting for a Q3 that should have been a goal (at least getting close to it) in this more mousey circuit.

And so, for the first time this season, Fernando highlighted something that Strollhis partner, already said weeks ago in Madrid: “lack of downforce.”

“Get better? I don’t know. The truth is that there has been plenty of grip and the dust on the track has not been a problem. The car felt good, with a little understeer that we have not resolved between Free Practice 1 and qualy sprintso there is work to do after the sprint race (looking for some set-up change for the main classification on Saturday)”, said Fernando into the microphone of the official F1 television.

“Other than that, the car is almost in the window. We lack downforce and perhaps that is a big penalty here and we still lack power for the straights,” he added. And even though there are no long straights, power still matters.

Yes, the chassis Adrian Newey presented in Hungary greatly improved the car, especially with a large weight reduction. And more weight was also lost in Baku. But it is not enough, and since Hungaryits rivals have also improved. Performance is still lacking in the car. And the engine, although it is less key in the Marina Bayalso influences the lap time. And with those weapons, Fernando he couldn’t do more.

He thought it was a good turn

In fact, the driver from Oviedo highlighted that the team can improve the car a little by eliminating the understeer he felt, but for the rest, the margin of progress is not so great because he felt that the car was close to its optimal window. At the wheel, he even felt that his lap had to be good to fight for Q3. But the reality was different.

“I felt it was a good lap and maybe good enough to get into SQ3, but being so far behind, 15th, is disappointing, I thought the quality of the lap was better”Fernando pointed out after a sprint classification that made it clear that reaching Q3 in the seven remaining classifications will not be possible.