Fernando Alonso was left without his 100th podium, and with 3 less points (from 3rd to 4th) due to the mistake of an Aston Martin mechanic, who activated the hydraulic jack prematurely to raise the car at the stop in which he had to serve a 5-second penalty. The Asturian reacted with resignation, and without giving too much importance to the loss: for the man from Oviedo, what remains is his performance and the good performance of the Aston Martin.
“I don’t care if they took the podium from me. If they took it from me before getting on the box it would have hurt a little more. But after the celebration, the champagne ceremony, and after 35 laps they had to think about the penalty and They apparently didn’t have time…”, the Spanish pilot commented to the Dazn TV microphone after learning of the subsequent 10-second penalty that made him lose third place.
“The team does not agree, they do not see the penalty. Let’s see what happens at the end…”, he tried to find a way out that would not come.
“Let them take away my dancing. I enjoyed the podium. The FIA ??has not been very good, it has had an hour to give the penalty and it has done everything a little wrong”, he threw a dart against the race direction, since the The commissioners let a lot of time pass between the violation (on lap 18) and the communication of the investigation, once the race was over, without giving the driver the option to minimize the 10 seconds added.
“I made a mistake at the start, I got too far to the left. When they told me that I had a 5-second penalty, I said to myself “I’m going to pull a little more” and thus I had 6 or 7 seconds of margin and nothing happened , but if they told me that we had 10 seconds of added penalty, I would have thrown a little more and would have gotten 11 or 12, but since they had not said anything…”, he argued.
Regarding his performance in Saudi Arabia, Alonso was very satisfied. “The objective this weekend was to see how competitive we could be here, on a circuit so different from Bahrain, and we were the second fastest car. We could with the Mercedes and the Ferrari at all times, and we even increased the distance with them how and when we wanted, and we’ve led the race for a couple of laps, so we have a picture of an Aston Martin leading the grid.”
“I have a very good taste in my mouth. I know it hurts a bit not to be on the podium, but I still haven’t assimilated it and since I’ve experienced all the excitement of the podium I’m still on top…”, concluded the Spaniard .
