Fernando Alonso expects to “suffer” at Italian Grand Prix after surprising qualifying result

Fernando Alonso was surprised by his qualifying performance ahead of the Italian Grand Prix. Starting eighth on the grid tomorrow with Lewis Hamilton’s five-place grid penalty taken into account, the Spaniard believes he outdrove the machinery he had available to him, but believes he will “suffer” during Sunday’s race.

Alonso had warned prior to the weekend that this would be a difficult race for the Silverstone outfit, but he still managed to push his way through to Q3, while his team-mate Lance Stroll finished Saturday 17th on the grid. 

Discussing his performance at Saturday’s end, Alonso said: “The truth is that it was better than expected. We thought we would be out in Q1.

“We put three sets of tyres on in Q1 because we thought we wouldn’t need any more. And look, we made progress in Q1, then in Q2 as well. And in the end, yes, starting eighth tomorrow is a bit of a surprise for us.

“But anyway, we’ll take it. The race is tomorrow anyway. I think we’ll suffer because we’re the slowest on the straights and tomorrow will be a big handicap.”

Due to the high drag of the AMR25, the straightline pace that Monza so desires won’t be available to the driver.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

“With Alpine, we thought we had the worst car. Well, we thought we had the worst car, so it’s been an inspired day,” he continued. “I thought I’d be on the verge of Q1. If I’d ended up in Q1, I would have had to accept it, because we were a bit slow all weekend, especially on the straights.

“We don’t have less wing, nor did we prepare very well for this race. As it’s a bit of an atypical race, it’s difficult to spend resources here on new wings, on new things, because you only use them once. So we’re coming in a bit like last year, and last year we were really bad, and this year it was no surprise to be bad as well.”

On being asked about how his race will fare, he didn’t hide his lack of confidence.

“I understand that I’m starting very far back, in eighth place, so I’ll be falling back, I suppose, little by little during the race.”

At the 2024 Italian Grand Prix, Alonso started 11th and finished in the same position. A repeat of this would be a good day for the 44-year-old.

“Historically it has been one stop because the pit loss here is huge, so let’s see,” he said. “We are open for any strategy. I think the biggest question mark for us is the pace. We didn’t have the pace the whole weekend. It’s good to have a good qualifying, but tomorrow we will see: will we have the car of free practice, or the car of qualifying? That will only be known around lap 10, lap 12.”

Photos from Italian GP – Practice & Qualifying