Alonso outfoxes Piastri and Russell in battle for sixth
Fernando Alonso headed off a late-blooming challenge from Oscar Piastri and George Russell as he successfully defended sixth place, hailing the Japanese Grand Prix as one of his “top five” performances.
Aston Martin driver Alonso had given up DRS to the chasing Piastri’s Mclaren on the main straight, only to counter it with energy deployment after charging up his battery over the rest of the lap. When Russell came to play behind them, Alonso let Piastri battle with the Mercedes, dropping both to cement his position.
The trio had all opted for differing flavours of two-stop strategy. Alonso began on the soft tyres, progressing through the mediums and then hards, while Piastri opened with the medium compound prior to two hard-tyre stints. The Mclaren driver attempted to undercut Alonso with earlier stops, but the Spaniard’s Aston
Martin team responded to each one a lap later to keep Alonso ahead.
In the meantime, Russell’s red-flag switch to the hard tyres offered little in early pace but, after aborting a one-stopper, his final stint on used mediums ensured that he had the pace to close in on the cars ahead. A botched move on Piastri at the final corner, where he ran the Australian out of road, was only a precursor to a later move, and the Mclaren driver couldn’t contend with the medium tyre offset towards the end.
While the Briton was then able to close down Alonso, he ran out of time to plot a move for sixth place. “I lost loads of time behind Lewis at the beginning,” Russell suggested. “Once we pitted, the pace was quite strong. In line with Charles and Lando, I think. So had we started a few positions higher it would have been a different race.”