Yesterday, I said vehemently: “Don’t try to understand him, it’s Fernando Alonso.” But today, in the cold weather, we have to try to understand how he does “machada”. Because containing Red Bull Racing during the 24-lap “stop” at Interlagos was an “almost impossible” task, as there were several obvious overtaking spots and the Aston Martin was in “lower gear”. “Arrived in Brazil.”
Without elaborating further, Dani Juncadella made it clear yesterday how difficult it would be to do what Fernando did. “You don’t know how complicated Alonso’s performance was. Facing a car that gave him 20-30 seconds in a normal race, after enduring more than 20 laps, with two laps to go from the finish line, he did not give up and Waiting for the opportunity to find a replacement line (hat icon),” Danny said.
Barcelona people have a very accurate eye. When a driver is overtaken, in today’s F1, it’s difficult to reverse the situation when entering dirty air. Furthermore, if we add that this was the penultimate lap – which would have been a “mental blow” – and Alonso’s performance was quite poor, then it seemed very difficult to get back to third place.
But Fernando did it, and he did it on his own terms. As? Capitalize on his “fame.” It is known that the driver from Oviedo is one of the few drivers who can “jump” into any corner without waiting for DRS. Hamilton’s maneuver at Turn 10 in Bahrain or Sainz’s overtaking at Turn 4 in Azerbaijan are good examples.
What’s more, just this Saturday, in “The Sprint”, we saw one of his moves again when he chased down Pierre Gasly in Junção. These were moves that few riders expected…but some already knew Fernando, and Sergio Perez was one of them. The problem for the Mexican is that knowledge is working against him this time.
In my opinion, the key to the podium was for Perez to stay “on his toes” on the penultimate lap. Once through, Fernando created a very open line in Turns 6 to 7 and “forced” “Checo” to resort to a very defensive line in Turn 8, which resulted in him running into “Leather” Lost momentum on the road to “Co.” ‘.
Under “normal” conditions, with mechanical advantage, Perez would certainly have been able to pull Alonso out of the DRS distance on the penultimate lap. But those Asturian lines made the most of the entire track and showed up in Red Bull’s rearview mirror, giving him a chance to reach the final lap.
In fact, when Fernando reached Senna’s “S” on the final lap, he was a bit further away from Checo, but that’s where his fame comes into play again. Perez knew Alonso could try to overtake by braking late – as he did against Hamilton at Turn 4 at the start of the race – so he decided to be more defensive… and give Leave a distance of one meter between yourself. Meters are key.
Fernando had switched to “Hunter” mode and decided to sacrifice Turn 1 to allow Turn 2 to have a lot of traction and get close to the Mexican driver. Since then, the Aston Martin driver has mastered handling with slipstream and DRS in the ‘Reta Oposta’.
The performance still needs to be “finished.” Checo had a chance on the final straight but Fernando was (if ever) an “old dog” and he spent the whole race testing another line in Junção in order to start with more traction and get some very good results Value in meters. And in the end, this ‘play’ was effective in getting on the podium again.
Alonso finished on the podium for the eighth time this year. In the case of “Photo Finish”, only 53 thousandths were obtained. Without a doubt the most valuable. It seems impossible to compete with Red Bull for pure dry pace this weekend. But the Asturian magicians continue to invent. And, although some pilots are already aware of his abilities, he has the ability to take advantage of any situation. Intelligence in the “cockpit” is underestimated.