Alonso fires “lucky” jibe at Ferrari after finishing within 1s of Leclerc
Alonso finished within a second of Charles Leclerc in the race for the podium in Sunday’s race in Baku.
It was an impressive recovery from the Spaniard, who started from sixth on the grid, while Leclerc was on pole position.
Tyre degradation has been Ferrari’s achilles heel in F1 2023 - it is also one of Aston Martin’s strengths.
Alonso believes had tyre degradation been greater, it’s likely he’d have been on the podium rather than Leclerc.
“I think they got lucky,” Alonso told Sky Sports F1. “The hard tyres was less degradation than expected.
“I think we put the hard tyre [on] when the Safety Car came and it was 38 laps to the end, and it held on quite well, and also there were some clouds now towards the end, so the track temperature was dropping.
“I think with the mediums, the Ferraris they had a massive degradation in the first stint, so on a normal hot race, I think they will struggle a little bit more. Today was good for them, but Miami is going be a different thing.”
It wasn’t a smooth race weekend for Aston Martin, who encountered DRS issues throughout the two qualifying sessions.
Given their difficulties, Alonso thinks Aston Martin did incredible to finish just within a second of Leclerc.
“The summary of the weekend is that Aston had a tricky Baku weekend let’s say,” Alonso added.
“With the DRS problems, on the setup, we were not that fast in any of the sessions, and we’re still one second from the podium.
“And Ferrari, they had the perfect weekend, pole position on the main race, pole position on the sprint race, super fast car and they were just one second from the Astons. So overall, we have to be happy.”
