The Spaniard is fastest in practice at Sakhir as Aston Martin tries to curb expectations.
At the end of paddock, a party. Bahrin is a quiet place for Formula 1, there are no traffic jams around the circuit, no parking problems, only a few thousand foreign fans walked through the stands this Friday, but at the end of the paddock there was a party During the training sessions, while in most motorhomes – some desert-colored booths – one enjoyed the calm, in the Aston Martin house it was not crowded. There were guests from the main sponsor, Aramco, an oil company from nearby Saudi Arabia, but also many, many guests from the Saudi Arabian team. Fernando Alonso. Nobody wanted to miss it, neither did THE WORLD.
Between pecan nut ice cream from the street stall set up opposite and music from DJ Snake, present in the circuit, applause, lots of applause. In the debut of the World Cup, in free practice yesterday, Alonso set the best time of the day, ahead of Red Bull from max verstappenahead of Red Bull from Czech Prez, and unleashed an ovation. Great setting in the British team that perhaps this Saturday (4:00 p.m., DAZN) will celebrate a pole position for the Spanish, that perhaps this Sunday will even celebrate a victory. The victory of him number 33.
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license to dream
license to dream
We did not expect this so soon, recognized a member of the team who, like the rest, assumes the official discourse: We have to wait. Fernando is awesome, he is incredibly motivated and incredibly competitive. We are happy, we are excited about these times, but this is only the basis on which we must work, proclaimed the team leader, Dan Fallowsex-Red Bull, a calm man, very calm, on a complicated mission: contain the euphoria.
In training this Friday, those around the team celebrated, applauded, enjoyed themselves, but those who work in the garage sought the utmost caution. In fact, at the end of the second free practice session, there was no celebration from the mechanics, not even a few fists in the air, a few smiles: they all began to analyze the car, to continue working. Even those responsible for communication postponed some interviews due to the expectations generated around them. We are happy as ever, but until the classification we cannot know the real position, they added from the team. There is some fear that Alonso will finish fifth tomorrow, for example, that is, he will surpass the best position achieved by Aston Martin last year -a sixth- and that it will be considered a fiasco.
containment exercise
The pilot himself said it. He is lying if I say that I don’t feel very well, but everything is relative, it depends on what the other teams do. Maybe in qualifying I feel very good, there are three or four cars that are faster than me and I don’t feel so good anymore, commented Alonso who, despite his time in free practice, was cautious: There is still a long way to go To go.
In his team, analysts valued his performance in free practice very positively, but they assumed that the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Pérez, second and third, had a higher load of gasoline and were suspicious of the Ferraris, which suffered several problems this Friday. The good thing has been the end of Alonso, they pointed to a round of laps with white tires that the Spaniard did at the same time as the current champion, Verstappen. Tenth up tenth down, the times traced.
The day had begun with the official presentation of all the cars sponsored by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) that taught the reasons for the change of Aston Martin. The summary of piece changes made by the British team occupied three pages; the work of the other teams, half a page, one at the most.
A new car for a practically new team, which has lived for a few months, since the first tests in the wind tunnel, since the preseason, in a constant duality. It is still early, the engineers repeat, while in their motorhome, at the end of the paddockthe party breaks out.
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