Again just a mixed qualifying for Fernando Alonso: After the Spaniard had achieved his worst qualifying placement of the 2023 season with ninth place at Silverstone, he did not finish eighth at the Hungaroring either.
“I was happy with the car. We made a few changes before qualifying and it felt good,” emphasizes Alonso and explains: “The average gap to pole position was [in diesem Jahr] at four or five tenths, and today it was four tenths”.
“So it was a normal qualifying for us,” said Alonso, who explains: “Even though it was a normal qualifying for us, it was an excellent qualifying for some of our main rivals. So, in terms of the result, it’s not a great Saturday.”
“We’re a tenth away from McLaren. So it’s not as bad as the result might look. But yes, we have to improve. There’s no doubt that we’ve taken a step back in the past few races, and everyone [andere] has taken a step forward,” said Alonso.
The Spaniard also has a concrete suspicion as to why this could be the case. He explains: “It’s quite a coincidence that when the new Pirelli tires came at Silverstone, some teams struggled more and some teams are now very happy with their car.”
Formula 1: Alonso does not move away from theory
Pirelli introduced a new tire construction at the last race and Alonso suspects it helped some teams – and hurt others. “It’s not just about us. I think Red Bull is clearly struggling with these tires,” he says.
“They’ve been first and second in every qualifying, first and second in every race and now they’re not even on pole. Checo is struggling to make it into the top 10. I think Silverstone was Max [im Ziel] just three seconds ahead of Lando,” said Alonso.
It’s all “a little abnormal,” muses the two-time world champion, who reveals: “You can feel that the car with the tires is a bit different.” He admits that other teams have recently brought major updates and thus improved performance.
However, he does not deviate from his theory. “I think Red Bull has lost performance since Silverstone. That’s a fact,” Alonso clarifies. Alonso had already expressed criticism in the press conference on Thursday before the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“I’m not a fan of changing the rules in the middle of a championship,” he said there, emphasizing that you wouldn’t suddenly play with different balls during a tennis tournament. But that is exactly what happens in a figurative sense when you change the tires in Formula 1 in the middle of the season.
Formula 1: Team boss Krack reacts
Incidentally, team boss Mike Krack does not address the subject in his media round after qualifying on Saturday evening. He explains that the field is just so tight at the moment that little things can make a difference of several positions.
“We couldn’t get along in the last run [entscheidend] improve”, explains the team boss, because after the first attempts in Q3 Alonso was still in fourth position. In the second run he then lost time, especially in two corners, and thus lost “a few positions”.
“If you’re a tenth faster, you end up in P4 or P5. It really depends on getting everything done 100 percent,” explains Krack. In fact, Alonso would have had to be just 0.065 seconds faster to start the race from P5 instead of P8 on Sunday.
When asked whether a top 4 result would have been possible with a perfect lap, Krack replies: “I think so.” Incidentally, he also emphasizes: “If you look at the gap to the front row, then this gap has not increased. It is even smaller than before.”
“With the gap we had today, you would have qualified on P4 or P3 a few races ago. And now it’s only good enough for P8,” said the team boss, who – unlike Alonso – doesn’t blame the new tires since Silverstone.
Formula 1: According to Alonso, tire format played no role
According to Alonso, the different tire format this weekend played no role in the final result. “It was strange, but not a big deal,” said the Spaniard, who clinched his first Formula 1 victory exactly 20 years ago at the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix.
“It feels like 20 years, it feels like a long time,” laughs Alonso, who doesn’t believe that a similar result will be possible on Sunday for the anniversary. “I don’t think there will be a big present tomorrow,” he dismisses.
“I think top 5, top 6 are maybe still possible if you start from P8. But I don’t think more than the top 5 is realistic,” said the Spaniard, who recently finished seventh in Silverstone in the race. He has never landed further behind in 2023.