Fernando Alonso claims he has no idea about the rankings for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite yet another impressive practice performance for the team.
The free practice sessions saw Fernando Alonso perform strongly once more, raising expectations for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team’s potential to contend for the podium.
The Bahrain Grand Prix third-place finisher, who finished the day in second place behind Max Verstappen, once more seemed to be the Red Bull team’s strongest rival. While he was able to split the Red Bulls, with Sergio Perez taking third, teammate Lance Stroll placed seventh and hoped to equal Alonso’s pace.
The double F1 world champion responded favorably when questioned about Aston Martin’s great performance, although he dampened expectations by mentioning the previous race’s poorer qualifying performance.
“Bahrain we were okay, like P1 on Friday, and then we were P5, nearly P6 in qualifying, so you never know until we go to qualifying,” Alonso said in an interview. “We tested all that we wanted to test in the car… I think it’s still not an ideal balance, so we still need to chase a little bit of grip tonight, but, so far, so good.”
Some people may have been startled to see Max Verstappen win both sessions because they had anticipated Red Bull would have more of a struggle at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
Alonso reaffirmed his belief that it would be challenging to comprehend the Saudi Arabian GP practice form when asked if Aston Martin had the second-fastest vehicle after Red Bull.
“I have no idea. I just drive the car and in qualifying I’ll see where I am, but obviously there are a lot of free practices, a lot of days between races, a lot of data to analyse, and a lot of predictions and estimations for you guys to do,” Alonso added.
“That’s the beauty of Formula One as well, but for us teams or drivers is difficult to read anything on free practices.”
