“I can’t believe it. Two years with the same damn problems on the straight.” This team radio was spoken yesterday by the man who could vie for the gold medal in communications with his pit wall, alongside Kimi Raikkonen. We are talking about Fernando Alonso, furious during the early stages of the Qatar Grand Prix after being overtaken on the start/finish straight by several rivals following him.
After hearing the team radio, made public and available to all TV broadcasters holding F1 TV rights, many thought that Alonso’s radio message was aimed at the power unit powering the Aston Martin.
Something very similar, though much more toned down, to the now-famous “GP2 engine” remark that Fernando made to the public several years ago when he was defending McLaren’s colors during his second and final stint with the Woking team.
At the end of the Qatar GP, where Fernando still managed to finish in seventh place and score points, consolidating Aston Martin’s fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, the Asturian explained more clearly what he meant by that very heated team radio, both in tone and word choice, to describe a situation he believes has lasted at least a couple of seasons.
“This isn’t the first race where we lack top speed on the first lap of the race or after returning to the pits following the Safety Car,” said Fernando after the Lusail race. “I think the car is ‘confused.’ It’s like it thinks it’s still behind the Safety Car. So we can’t use the energy properly out of the last corner when the green flag comes. This obviously costs us a lot, especially when you can’t use the energy and you have so many cars behind you.”
“I think we lost two or three positions at the first restart. And I think this is very concerning for the final outcome of the race. We compensated in the end with some luck. We’re still investigating what happened. I think the team knows what the problem is. Now we need to find a solution.”
According to Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack, Alonso might have suffered from a lack of traction at the first restart. However, this doesn’t rule out the fact that the team also needs to study what happened from the perspective of the power unit’s energy management.
“I think Fernando was frustrated because he couldn’t push harder at the restart. It’s something we need to look into. I believe our traction wasn’t great, and I think that’s the aspect he mainly felt.”
“Then yes, maybe some others managed the energy differently. We’ll have to look into it. It’s important to understand what happened because maybe Fernando’s comment was misleading for the future. But I understand why he made it. It was his feeling in the car, and the competitors were passing him.”
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