Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin “have to be happy” as a “tricky” Azerbaijan weekend still yielded a P4 finish.
The Spaniard capitalised on an early Safety Car and produced an opportunistic move on Carlos Sainz to finish behind the top three on Sunday in Baku.
Alonso also came close to challenging Charles Leclerc for what would have been a fourth straight third place to begin the season, finishing less than a second behind the Ferrari.
Also Read:
- Leclerc takes solace in beating Alonso, Red Bull ‘in another league’
- Fernando Alonso ‘always’ has belief in winning a third F1 title
And speaking post-race, Fernando claimed the Monegasque benefitted from improved tyre wear as conditions cooled late on.
“I think they [Ferrari] got lucky,” he told Sky Sports. “The hard tyres saw less degradation than expected.
“I think we put the hard tyre [on] when the Safety Car came and it was 38 laps to the end, and it held on quite well, and also there were some clouds towards the end, so the track temperature was dropping.
“I think with the mediums, the Ferraris they had a massive degradation in the first stint, so on a normal hot race, I think they will struggle a little bit more. Today was good for them, but Miami is going be a different thing.”
Alonso also took all the positives from a weekend that saw Aston Martin on the back foot for the first time this year.
“The summary of the weekend is that Aston had a tricky Baku weekend let’s say,” he assessed.
“With the DRS problems, on the setup, we were not that fast in any of the sessions, and we’re still one second from the podium.
“And Ferrari, they had the perfect weekend, pole position on the main race, pole position on the sprint race, super fast car and they were just one second from the Astons. So overall, we have to be happy.”
