Fernando Alonso figures he could have fought for a win at Monaco — if only he hadn’t slammed his car into the barrier, wrecking the chassis to the point it is now unusable for the rest of the season.
OK, the latter part of that? More me than him. Alonso in his latest “blog” post at Ferrari does “write” that he could have battled for the victory that was Mark Webber’s, but he sort of skips over the crashing part. Well, except to say it’s never happened to me before.
Hey Fred, I feel for you. But, man, it happens to every guy at some point.
Here’s the post from Fernando:
The Monaco Grand Prix was bittersweet for me. Clearly, in terms of the points I picked up, it was not good enough, especially as we were in the right shape to fight for the win. Following on from Barcelona, where we were not fast enough to win, on the Monaco track, where aerodynamics is less important, we were more competitive. When you have a car that is easy to drive, as is the case with the F10 – something which Felipe and I both realised immediately right from the first test in Valencia – it means you quickly feel confident with it. And that is vital on a track like this one.
Then, on Saturday morning, you all know what happened and sixth place on Sunday therefore had a very different flavour to it: this result should make the team proud of all they did in difficult circumstances. It’s never happened to me before, not to be able to take part in qualifying. It can happen that you go out in the early stages, because of a mistake or a technical problem, but to find yourself having to watch the screen right from the start, that was really cruel. But I think this incident brought us even closer together as a group: it’s at times like these that you get the measure of people and the entire team was amazing.
Sunday was very satisfying. We were aware that if we wanted to finish in the points, everything had to be perfect: the car, strategy, overtaking and tyres. And that was indeed the case. The first laps were very hectic, with six overtaking moves and then I had to try and make the most of the strategy, waiting for others to pit. From lap 28, I found myself sixth and, from that point onwards, my main aim was to manage the car and the tyres. We had only finished rebuilding the car a few hours earlier and to finish such a tough race without the slightest problem shows just how great the lads are. Then at the end came the incident with Michael: the pit wall had told me that, as the race was still under the Safety Car on the last lap, overtaking was not allowed and so I was calm and that was later confirmed by the Stewards, who put things right.
Now, we have to roll our sleeves up to push even more on the development of the car. We still have to make up some ground in terms of performance and as we are in the thick of the fight, we don’t want to leave anything to chance as we try and reach our goals.
Pretty cut and dry piece, huh? I suppose we could read into the “team coming together” stuff, which I don’t want to discount — I think the trust and collective “we’re in this together” attitude is vital — but, frankly, I’d maybe like something a bit more specific: “My engineers (maybe even name them?) worked like crazy to get my car in order. This race is dedicated to them.” Something a little more than “lads.” (Maybe there’s a little lost in translation, but he could have spent a bit more time applauding them.)
And then there’s his comments about the Schumacher incident, which is no where near the rhetorical gold of the Mercedes release announcing the team wouldn’t follow through on its appeal. I do like the “I was calm” comment. What’s that supposed to mean to us?
Oh, and I do things here like put “write” in quotes, because we’ve all discussed how these blogs are set up to be by the drivers, right? Well, I may have found a blog that actually is written by a driver.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Adrian Sutil’s blog about Monaco.
