Alonso: ‘We’ve been faster than Mercedes this weekend’

Fernando Alonso believes Alpine were “a little bit faster than Mercedes” all weekend in Melbourne, after a frustrating race for the Spaniard.

Alonso appeared to be in the hunt for a top three starting slot after a superb qualifying session was cut short following a hydraulic failure in Q3, and started P10 as a result.

He and his team opted to go against the grain and start on the hard tyres, which would allow him to drive further into the race before pitting, but an ill-timed Safety Car allowed those around him to put on hard rubber to the end of the race.

Alonso then plummeted outside the points when he did pit, and his medium tyres proved unstable and he ended up finishing P17 and last on the road at Albert Park – far away from what he had expected in the weekend.

With Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton having taken P3 and P4, the 40-year-old believed there was maybe potential to get on the podium himself, had things gone smoothly.

“We were looking for P6 or P7, starting on the hard tyre on the reverse [strategy], which was good, starting in tenth,” Alonso told Sky F1.

Fernando Alonso's left thumb is taped up, the Alpine driver straining it in his qualifying crash.

Good news is he is ready to race and will line up P10 on the Australian GP grid #F1 pic.twitter.com/ZcOj14TTpx

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) April 10, 2022

“[It was] the Safety Car in the wrong moment of the race that was our killer, so I’m a little bit speechless because I think today, we could have been on the podium, to be honest.

“If we qualified third or fourth yesterday, with Max [Verstappen] out, George in the podium – I think we’ve been a little bit faster than the Mercedes this weekend.

“So we lost that opportunity here, also in Jeddah