Alonso ‘white’ fan
Almost twenty years after his first and last victory in Imola, Fernando Alonso returns to the Santerno circuit for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. An event that comes two weeks after the Miami GP, with the Spaniard who, between these two races, attended the Champions League semi-final of his Real Madrid who emerged victorious against Bayern Munich: “It was fantastic, I come to the Bernabeu whenever possible as I’m a big Real Madrid fan – explained the two-time world champion – last week I saw the new stadium, so it was a nice opportunity. I was in a nice seat in the VIP box next to some legends of the sport. I tried to stay calm because I’m more emotional than them and I had to behave, but it was nice. I thought about going to see the final, but at the moment I don’t think so because I think it would be stressful from a logistical point of view, even if I would like to see the match.”
The penalties
Having closed the parenthesis linked to football, Alonso obviously returned to talking about F1, focusing on one of the most discussed topics in this last period, namely that relating to the controversy over penalties: “There are still many ongoing discussions between drivers, FIA and stewards about future regulations and driver conduct – he added – I think from our point of view the penalties were inconsistent. When there is an accident or episode under investigation there is always one side that thinks differently from the other, but this is the nature of sport. There have been cases, especially in the last two or three years, where different parties think the same way, while the stewards in another, which is the strangest aspect. It’s something we need to work on, and I was happy to read an article the other day in which Perez and Sargeant said that penalties were strangeand that means that I’m not the only one who thinks this way“.
“We have always tried to give our best without making contact, and we have seen how sensitive these cars are from the point of view of the aerodynamic components even when going through gravel, and here in Imola there is a lot of it. It’s almost a recall, because you damage the car. The last thing we want to avoid is contact, but that’s part of the nature of racing. We need to make everything simpler – he continued – each of us is trying to improve from mistakes in order to have an easier weekend. Even in qualifying it’s not easy when you leave the garage, because there are some cars in the pit lane and you don’t know if you will have enough time to complete the tour or not. You are in the hands of other drivers from the moment they shift into first gear and leave the pit lane to see if you have time or not. These things are new, we’ve never had them in 75 years, so they’re things of which all of us, drivers, teams, FIA, must all discuss together, because sometimes we aren’t even united. There are teams fighting each other, or riders and teams not agreeing on something, so this is the biggest difficulty we have and we hope we can manage it.”
Updates
In conclusion, Alonso then focused on the updates that Aston Martin will bring for this weekend, without however going too far: “There was good progress in Bahrain, in Jeddah, in Australia, in Japan, and a little bit in Miami. In every race we bring some new parts, and it will be no different here in Imola. Tomorrow we will see if they lead to improvements in free tests, also because there won’t be a sprint unlike the last two weekends and we will have more time to optimize the package and set-up, but I don’t think it will be different from all the other races. It will also be seen in the next races in Monaco, Barcelona and Canada.”
