It was the first race Fernando Alonso with its new engineer in Aston MartinChris Cronin, but the two understood each other wonderfully.
The Asturian, as usual, seemed to multiply working from inside the car and from the wall race while reading.
Cronin, for his part, aware of the personality and attitude of the double Formula 1 world champion, knew how to manage him perfectly and choose the moments of less tension to tell him the least pleasant.
Analyzing the X-rays of Alonso and his team, he highlights how Fernando “guessed” what was going to happen a few laps later with tire degradation as a key element.
From the 7th lap, at the green wall, they were already thinking about it: “The three cars in front are not going completely. Good in management. But the group behind doesn’t drop too much either. So probably expect A plus 2 or 3 at the moment.”
In the 13th, before entering the pits, they asked the man from Oviedo how his tires were: “Yes, they feel good. I think we should continue“. “You can give it your all with the tyres,” they told him. And that’s what he did.
Already in the 23rd, giving the “hunt” to Hamilton, his engineer praised his wheel management: “We are happy with your management.”
“Yes, they have more degradation. Let’s think about how we use it“, replied Alonso, “cooking” the passing in his head.
On the 32nd, he complained about the bends and began to guess what was going to happen: “The traffic penalizes the tires a lot. Hopefully they find something too.oh”.
“Yes, I’m happy. We continue. The tires seem to be fine,” he added before reaching carlos sainz at 43 and 44 years old.
There, he began his analysis: “How old are your tires?” “He is worried about his tires”They told him about Sainz.
“He’s in your DRS zone,” they told Alonso after passing the Madridista, to which a calm Fernando replied: “Okay. It’ll kill your tires.”
So that was it. Sainz had to slow down to reach the end of the race and Alonso made a heroic comeback to reach the podium in his first race with Aston Martin. “But what did you guys do?”he expressed at the end, hallucinating with the car.