Fifth and 30 seconds above: this is the cabal that does Alpine about what might have been in store for him United States Grand Prix a Fernando Alonso not having suffered the accident with Lance Stroll.
Otmar Szafnauerteam boss, explained that the crash broke the team’s strategy with the medium tyre.
Shortly after mounting it to start gaining positions, Alonso hit his future teammate after a beginner’s maneuver.
For this reason, he had to return to the pits to mount hard compounds, change the front wing and launch himself wildly towards the comeback.
“We didn’t do a single lap on the mediums, and it was the best tyre. Unfortunately, it was the compound Fernando had when he crashedand we had to get rid of him to go back to hard, which wasn’t that good”, Szafnauer explained in statements collected by ‘Marca’.
“For Ferdinand, the biggest drawback was having to run on the hard tire again. So, if the accident had not happened, the strategy would have been different. We did I think four laps on the medium, and then we put the hard back on, that was the biggest problem for me. The medium, as seen with Magnussen, did 38 laps, so we could have gone with the medium-hard until the end, and had a much better race, we would have been 30 seconds above“, Add.
According to the forecasts of the Romanian, Alonso would have endured with the medium until the end, which would have meant gaining time and finishing in fifth place. However, with the FIA sanction in the crosshairsthis hypothesis remains a dead letter.
