After his “terrifying” collision with Lance Stroll, in which he was temporarily airborne in his Alpine, Fernando Alonso admitted that he was “amazed” that he was able to continue racing.
The accident caused him to briefly lose control of his vehicle.
Alonso made a steady start on the hard tyre, making it up to seventh in the first stint before a Safety Car – caused by Valtteri Bottas’ spinning onto the gravel – allowed him to get a cheap pit stop. This was because Alonso had taken a five-place grid penalty for exceeding his allocation of engine components, which caused him to start the race in the 14th position.
The Spaniard started the race in ninth place and moved up to eighth after passing Pierre Gasly at the restart. He then made an attempt to move up to seventh place by passing Lance Stroll. Stroll, who has been handed a three-place grid penalty in Mexico for the incident, retired from the race. Alonso, however, was able to continue, much to his surprise, despite his car rearing up into the air and then hitting the barriers. This came as a surprise to Alonso because it was not expected that he would be able to continue.
Alonso responded, “It was extremely difficult,” when questioned about the effect that the incident had on him. “Five minutes ago, I was feeling OK. Right now, I’m experiencing some minor discomfort, so it looks like I’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out for sure. The vehicle is once again in a very good position; anyone who has an issue with Alpine often has everything to lose.
“It was a terrible experience while we were in the car because when you are high in the air, anything may happen.” You can catch a glimpse of the IndyCar drivers performing daring stunts like the 360 if you catch the metal railing on the left side of the track. As a result, I had the notion that I would wind up on the left, or even further to the left.
In addition, he claimed, “When I saw that I landed on track, I said okay, I will retire the car now, that’s it for today but no, changed tyres, front wing, go.” He went on to say that he was surprised by his success. We had a very powerful car, and despite having to change our tyres and front wing, we continued racing.
After the accident, Alonso pulled into the pit lane, where he replaced one pair of his hard tires with another, and then he went back out onto the track in 17th place. After that, he continued to work his way through the field and eventually passed Kevin Magnussen, which allowed him to move back up to seventh place once more.
It’s incredible that we were able to make the tyres last on the final stint, and even though we lost out to Lando [Norris] on the last few laps, we still come away from this race with some good points,” said Alonso. “I was amazed that the car managed to complete the 31 laps until the end, and we still finished in P7 after being in P17, so it was a good race.”
After the race, the stewards decided that Alonso’s car was in an unsafe condition because his right-hand mirror had become detached from the vehicle while he was trying to pass Magnussen. As a result of this decision, the stewards penalized Alonso with a 30-second time penalty and classified him as having finished 15th in the race. This caused the Spaniard to fall out of the points and be placed in 15th place.
Despite this, it is possible that this is not the end of the tale because on Monday night it was revealed that both Alpine and Haas were going to meet the stewards on Thursday. This was in response to Alpine’s protest against the stewards’ initial verdict.
Alonso and Alpine will still start the race in Mexico in fourth place in the championship, but their lead over McLaren has been cut to only six points pending the verdict of the stewards. Despite this, Alonso will continue to drive for Alpine.
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