Alonso says he addressed Q3 weakness after best grid position of 2021

2021 Turkish Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso says he’s addressed an area where he was losing out to his rivals after taking fifth on the grid for the Turkish Grand Prix.

The Alpine driver has achieved his best starting position of the year. He qualified sixth, just under four tenths of a second slower than pace setter Lewis Hamilton in Q3, and will move up to fifth after the Mercedes driver takes his grid penalty.

Alonso said he had not performed as well as other drivers in the final round of qualifying in previous events.

“I felt that I maximised the lap and the grip and the car balance,” he said after qualifying on Saturday. “I’ve been some Saturdays, P4, P5, P6 in Q1, then in Q2.

“But then I arrive in Q3 and it seems that everyone is putting together the lap and they are nailing the lap better than than what I can do. But today I kept consistency Q1, Q2, Q3 and I’m happy for this.”

Having returned to F1 following a two-year absence this season, Alonso believes he hasn’t yet reached the limit of his potential.

“There is more to come,” he said. “There was not a clear step or clear feeling that we improved from the beginning of the year. But it seems that from Baku, I was like 11 or 12 consecutive races in the points.”

Alonso has only failed to score points once since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. “We went through the team backwards, in Baku, what we changed or what we were doing to really turn around our competitiveness,” he explained.

“There is not a clear thing, I think with this quali performance, extracting the maximum from the car, I don’t think that there’s going to be a clear sign or factor that will tell us why I feel more comfortable now.

“I think it’s just the races are coming, every time you jump in the car, you feel more comfortable, more things have been adapted to myself a little bit on my side of the garage with my engineer working a lot. “We had a meeting Monday before coming here.

“So there is a lot of things going on between the weeks to prepare the races and we are giving our 100 percent. So I’m happy with the results.”

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2021 Turkish Grand Prix

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2 comments on “Alonso says he addressed Q3 weakness after best grid position of 2021”

  1. Of all the newcomers in the teams he’s clearly been the most performing and that car definitely shows some strength which he is able to extract.
    So far his return is quite a success, hopefully next year Alpine’s project is even more competitive!

  2. Awesome qualifying. Best of the day IMO. I actually watched the replay of the onboard, it was so fun. His engineer was very good, and Alonso could just be loaded with info.

    Shame he couldn’t convert in the race.

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