Fernando Alonso did not think that he was going to suffer so many setbacks this season with his Alpine. In Austria the loop was curled this past weekend and the Spaniard had to deal with all kinds of problems. And despite everything force scoring entering tenth. A mechanic's mistake when mounting the wheel forced him to stop again. “We have lost 50 or 60 points” this season, he assured him before the race at Red Bull Ring. This Sunday the figure increased. The weekend was already twisted on Saturday. He had to start eighth in the sprint race that determined the final starting grid, but his Alpine did not start when all the cars were already in formation, forcing him to start penultimate, just ahead of Bottas, also sanctioned.
The disappointment is immense. “The car did not start, I ran out of battery. We tried to start the car with an external battery, but not enough either. Once again a problem with my car, and surely another weekend in which we have an ultra-competitive car and we are going to leave with zero points”, he explained later. "This is one of the best years for me, I feel at a very good level, and we have lost about 50 or 60 points," he lamented. The Spaniard elaborated on the problem: “Removing the covers from the tires was the second priority, the first problem was starting the car and we couldn't, there is an electrical problem that turned it off all the time. We'll look into it for the race. It's very disappointing, very frustrating, I'm driving at one of the highest levels of my career and the car won't start, the engine. Not many points, but for my part I am very proud of the work I am doing. If I give up or have zero points because of my mistake, I will feel bad. But as long as I do my job, I can get there well, "he assured.
This Sunday he suffered a problem again and had to hold his tongue to avoid charging against his team, who put a wrong tire on him, which meant an extra stop and ruining a possible sixth place. “It was a very difficult race, especially starting so far back. We had a lot more pace but we were all on a DRS train and no one overtook, so we lost a lot of time there, "he began explaining. "In the end I think we could have finished sixth but we had to make an extra pit stop, one lap after the previous one because I had a lot of vibrations in the tires, I didn't know what was happening and I had to stop, we'll see what happens with the investigation" , he added. Alonso did not want to publicly delve into the error because the regulations specify that if a car does not have a wheel properly mounted, it must stop immediately and the Spanish driver will finish the lap until he re-enters the boxes, which can lead to a penalty. For this reason, the FIA assured that it would investigate the incident.
In the end, starting penultimate, expecting to finish in tenth position and score a point, which did not satisfy the Spaniard: “Silverstone and these have been my two best races. There we were able to finish fifth and here we say only but I felt much faster than the cars they were fighting against and that is a good feeling.
