Fernando Alonso said he was lucky the brake failure which put him out of the race happened at a quick corner and not a slow one.
The Aston Martin driver retired in the pits after the problem struck. He revealed he problem struck as he approached the first corner.“The brakes apparently were very hot since the beginning of the race,” he told the official F1 channel. “Then by lap three or lap four I went on the brakes in turn one and the pedal went just to the bottom of the chassis. That was super-scary.”
Turn one is one of the quickest corners on the track. Drivers only have to decelerate a little, which meant Alonso was able to bring the car under control.
“Lucky turn one is just a corner that you just downshift and go into the corner,” he said. “If that happens in turn 14 or whatever I think it could be a massive crash because I will take four or five cars in front of me out of the race.
“So, an unlucky situation, I think we were lucky today to not hit any car in front of us or whatever and now let’s try to understand what happened and try to see the first chequered flag in Japan.”
Alonso remains yet to finish a grand prix this year after crashing out of the Australian Grand Prix a week ago. He said the car’s performance was “a little bit better than in Australia, I think, in race pace, yesterday in the sprint.”
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His team mate Lance Stroll finished 12th after running a long opening stint on the hard tyre compound. He said he thought a points finish might be possible before his final stint.
“I thought the race was coming to us after the first stint,” he said. “But just the other medium [tyre, there was] a lot of graining and then I think the whole race ended up just becoming a one-stop for everybody, so that was that.”
“I think we have a lot to work on, for sure, if we want to finish in the points comfortably going forward,” he added.
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BasCB (@bascb)
23rd March 2025, 13:05
Didn’t Gasly comment on Alonso’s brakes being on fire a lap or so before they gave up?
XM (@xmf1)
23rd March 2025, 13:45
Yeah I heard that too. Guess AMR pit wall was hoping it wasn’t and didn’t tell him? Or probably didn’t hear it altogether.
kpcart
23rd March 2025, 14:56
Grow up. We saw in the coverage what AM saw, only some mild smoke. This has happened many times in F1 history, and often the brakes cool down. What did you think Alonsos team should have do in this situation?? Do you have access to AMs telematery or just want to judge by one broadcast driver comment??
Denis (@denis1304)
23rd March 2025, 17:18
@kpcart Calm down.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
23rd March 2025, 13:56
I was totally opposed to the rule change for damaged cars at the start of the year – but it doesn’t seem the stewards will bother imposing it anyway.
“Any driver whose car has significant and obvious damage to a structural component which results in it being in a condition presenting an immediate risk of endangering the driver or others, or whose car has a significant failure or fault which means it cannot reasonably return to the pit lane without unnecessarily impeding another competitor or otherwise hindering the competition must leave the track as soon as it is safe to do so.
At the sole discretion of the race director, should a car be deemed to have such significant and obvious damage to a structural component, or such significant failure or fault, the competitor may be instructed that the car must leave the track as soon as it is safe to do so.”
Alonso pulled over when his brake was on fire. Lando continued when his engineer told him it was ‘critical’. Now, I don’t want this ruled applied but why make these changes at all?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd March 2025, 14:33
Not sure, I would put it in the list of bad decisions by f1, in cases like norris’ problem I want to see if the car makes it to the end and, in the more extreme cases, in which position, not certainly someone forced to retire a car that can make it to the end.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd March 2025, 14:35
And as for what triggered the rule change, there’s been cases where drivers had a broken rear wing and made it to the podium, there was some spa race in the ferrari dominant years where barrichello lost the rear wing, they took several minutes to repair it while under SC and he managed to get back onto the track before being lapped (at the time you couldn’t unlap yourself under SC) and ended up being 3rd in the end, and surely not the only case where cars with that problem salvage a good result.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
23rd March 2025, 14:51
Yeah I’m fully against the stewards telling drivers they have to retire too. I think it’s rife for abuse and politicing. I’m glad it isn’t used on this occasion, it just seems pointless to me to make a vague rule, clearly in relation to a particular incident and then not even consider applying it in a broader context.
kpcart
23rd March 2025, 14:56
What???