Fernando Alonso
Alonso rues 'missed chances' and sees 'luck' saving Aston Martin's Dutch GP
17:29, 01 Sep
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Fernando Alonso finished P8 at the Dutch Grand Prix, and despite the points-scoring result, the Spaniard believes there was more up for grabs for Aston Martin.
In a weekend where opportunities were bountiful, Alonso believes Aston Martin missed chances to optimise their result.
"I think we missed the opportunity for us," began Alonso to GPblog among others after the race.
"I think the car had some good pace today in the race, but we were unlucky with the safety cars in the wrong time and the wrong place.
"We could not optimise our two sets of hard tyres, compared to our opposition.
"That was a little bit of a shame, but let's try once again," added Alonso in his usual never-give-up fashion, listing the ways in which he feels his team did not maximise the result as much as they could.
There was more in the AMR25, so a strategic shake-up could've been in order
Alonso then questioned the timing of the strategic calls the British racing green-coloured team’s pit wall made.
"Yeah, I think on the first stop, I'm not sure it was the best thing where we pit it and the strategy we opted for.
"And in the second I was just worried that we will just stay behind for the whole race and do the same as the others."
What worried Alonso wasn’t just the strategic potential missed, but also the untapped performance in his AMR25, which made him hopeful of a much better result.
"I felt that the car had more pace so I want to do something different than the others and try to overtake them and, yeah, we overtook at the end one Red Bull and one Haas and the other Haas finished in front of us."
Alonso aware of luck, but claims P5 doable based on pure performance
Singling out Oliver Bearman’s luck with the last safety car, Alonso then turned the attention inward, to himself and to his team, and saw them both benefitting from the race circumstances as well, so his P8 finish he takes with a pinch of salt.
"And we were lucky also with the retirements and the penalty of Kimi (Antonelli, ed.). If not, we were not in the points, so we need to be aware of that."
What, then, could Alonso and Aston Martin have achieved at Zandvoort this past Sunday?
"I don't know. I think we've been significantly faster than some of the cars that finished in front of us, like the Williams and the Hasses.
"So, yeah. I don't know, Albon, where he finished P5 or P6. So I think that P5 was very possible with our pace today," Alonso concluded.
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