Formula 1 arrives in Barcelona for the 10th round of this year, and Fernando Alonso will have his home race at the F1 Spanish GP. He hopes that Aston Martin finally gets a clearer picture over its upgrades from the Imola GP at the start of the now ending triple header.
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya – with its balanced layout and familiar conditions – will offer Aston Martin a more reliable benchmark. Speaking ahead of the Spanish GP, Alonso also touched on the importance of preserving traditional circuits like Barcelona and addressed recent simulator correlation issues.
Alonso: Aston will push from FP1 to the race at Spanish GP
“Well, home Grand Prix. So, it’s different to all drivers when you race in front of your home crowd and, you know. Friends, family are normally in the grandstands or in the paddock. And, yeah, you want to deliver something always extra at your home place. And we know Barcelona very well. It’s not only in my case. I think all Formula 1 drivers, we did a lot of laps here, a lot of testing. So, yeah, it’s a circuit that we know very well, and we push the limits from FP1 to the race.
“I think Barcelona will tell us a little bit more about the new package. Imola was a step forward for sure, but also, I think we ran the Medium tyres and that helped us in qualifying. And then Monaco is such a special place and Saturday is obviously a key part of the weekend, and we put some good laps on Saturday as well.
“So, Barcelona, with a more normal weekend, we will discover where we are in terms of performance. But I think everyone will bring also some upgrades here, especially with the new regulation with the front wing, and let’s see how much it affects everyone on the grid.”
Failed Monaco engine can not be used again, Alonso confirms
“From what I know, it was something on the spark plug and then it damaged one cylinder. And then after that cylinder was damaged, I was racing with five cylinders for 20 laps. And then the engine stopped completely, and that engine cannot be used again. It’s gone. So, yeah, that’s the news that I have,” Alonso explained the engine failure during last weekend’s Monaco GP that was won by McLaren’s Lando Norris.
“I don’t think there was anything really wrong with it or any procedure that was different than any other race. It was just the end of the life of that engine. It happened at the wrong moment at the wrong time. But yeah, nothing probably we could have done differently. And for this race, there is nothing really different to be made, and we should be okay, because we never had that problem and we don’t think that that problem will be repeated.”
Correlation issues between simulator and car?
Alonso was asked about the correlation issues between Aston Martin’s new simulator and the car’s on-track performance. How much of a hindrance that poses for him as a driver, and what the team is doing to address it – given it could take up to two years to fully resolve.
“I think all the simulators will have some kind of correlation issues to the real car. And I don’t think that any team has a perfect simulator that you can trust 100%, because the car on the real track and in real life is very dynamic, and it keeps changing, always, corner to corner and session to session. There are not two laps on the weekend that are exactly the same, because of the wind, because of the temperature, because of the traffic in front—all these kinds of things.
“So when you try to replicate that on a simulator, in a consistent and perfect environment, I think it’s very different. But I think it will take less than two years to fix our simulator. It’s not new. Maybe it’s the first time that Adrian said it in Monaco in the interview. But rest assured that drivers, we mentioned it a couple of times already.”
F1 should keep traditional circuits – Alonso hopes Barcelona remains
“I don’t think that we will lose Barcelona. So that’s my opinion and my wish as well. I think it’s good to have new venues. It’s good to have new countries as well that Formula 1 has moved to in the last decade,” Alonso said.
“But at the same time, we need to keep some traditional circuits where the history of Formula 1 has been written and made. And I think Formula 1 and Barcelona are very linked. We’ve been testing here for decades. I think all the teams choose Barcelona when they have to choose one test track. We come back next year here in winter because we have new regulations, new cars, and again, once again, the teams chose Barcelona because it’s the Formula 1 track in a way.
“And I think the circuit has made some changes to make it up to Formula 1 standards. So in the last two or three years, all the paddock facilities, the grandstands, everything has taken a new level. And Barcelona has been here for the last two or three decades, and Barcelona will be here for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And some of the venues will be just momentarily on the calendar and then probably they will disappear again. So, we cannot lose Barcelona.”
