Fernando Alonso is rather pleased with his F1 Qatar GP, especially as he managed to secure a strong P7 finish. The result matches his final position earned the day before during the Sprint Race, thus allowing him to bring back home a great total of eight points.
Such bounty of points is incredibly helpful to Aston Martin, who can be a bit more secure of their P7 finish ahead of the final round in Abu Dhabi. With 80 points to his and teammate Lance Stroll’s name, seven above Haas in P8, the Silverstone-based team can definitely be a bit more secure.
However, the afternoon was not all smooth sailing for the Spanish driver. In fact, Alonso completed a 360 spin on Lap 42, which caused him to lose two spots to Hadjar and Russell. Nevertheless, the two times World Champion was able to continue pursuing the very important points finish.
A very positive outing
Alonso is glad about his race day in the F1 Qatar GP, and even more so about the entirety of his racing weekend, as he said in a the print media pen.
“Yeah, definitely [I got] lucky with the spin, you know, any other circuit maybe I’d finish on the gravel. So, two points yesterday, six today, eight in total in Qatar weekend, definitely is exceeding our expectations. Really, really happy for the team.”
It’s a ninth seasonal top ten result for the Aston Martin driver, bringing his total tally of 2025 to 48.
“A crucial moment in the Constructors’ Championship and we can go to Abu Dhabi with a little bit less pressure and less weight on our shoulders.”
His favourite moment of the race in Losail was the race start, where he managed to immediately overtake Hadjar because of a mistake by the French driver. The Spaniard also passed George Russell in turn 6.
“Yeah, the start was good, I think Hadjar in front of me had a bad start, so that makes things a little bit easier for me into Turn 1. And yeah, after the safety car, obviously we all committed to just two stints of 25 laps, so that was the end of the strategy discussion.”
Not a lot of room for different strategies
As the former Renault and Ferrari driver explained, from a strategical point of view the race was rather straightforward, since the entire grid apart from McLaren opted to put on lap 7 during the Safety Car following Hulkenberg and Gasly’s crash.
The similarity in pit time frame helped him to achieve the strong result, as it reduced the possibility of assaults on a more favourable tyre.
“We had just to stop in that lap and that helped me a lot because there were not undercut threats, there were not overcut threats, so we were just on a train of cars. This is the second most difficult circuit to overtake behind Monaco. I didn’t have the pace, I was slow the whole race, but, you know, thanks to the layout, no one could overtake me and I was holding everyone behind.”
Alonso rounded off his thorough analysis of the F1 Qatar GP by highlighting the importance of luck and timing in his performance of the day. Multiple factors played an important role in his securing seventh place.
“So, yeah, I was lucky in many ways today, in the start, I was lucky with the safety car, that everyone chose that strategy and then, yeah, lucky with the layout that you cannot pass.”
