Alonso ‘speechless’ as Oz GP opportunity squandered

The Australian Grand Prix had the potential to offer Fernando Alonso a front-row start and a decent points haul. But the Alpine driver instead came away “speechless”, declaring “everything is going the wrong way”.

A hydraulics issue in qualifying forced his car to shut down moments after setting a fastest sector time in Q3 and he crashed. He then appeared set for a strong recovery from 10th on the grid, only to have his hopes of making an alternative tyre strategy work scuppered. A second safety car was called on lap 23 after Sebastian Vettel’s crash. It was too soon for Alonso to switch from hard to medium tyres. As a result, when he did eventually pit, he was released into traffic and then forced into an extra stop to finish 17th – last of the on-track runners.

“I’m speechless to be honest,” said the double F1 champion. “It’s hard to accept that everything is going in the wrong way. We lost a guaranteed P6 in Saudi. Here I think we were looking for P6 or P7 before the safety car. And obviously, if we take into account [qualifying], the podium was very easy with Max [Verstappen] out.”

Team-mate Esteban Ocon, meanwhile, had a comparatively quiet afternoon with his run to seventh. He admitted to conceding a top-five in qualifying due to wrong set-up, and was slightly hampered in the race by having to cool his engine.