Fernando Alonso says a lack of testing can’t be an excuse for his poor performance at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The double world champion’s race was marred by a poor start, dropping to 17th at one stage, and a spin shortly after tiptoeing through the debris from the crash involving George Russell and Valtteri Bottas.
After that, Alonso would recover to finish 11th on track at Imola, inheriting P10 following Kimi Raikkonen’s 30-second post-race penalty, scoring his first Formula 1 point since Singapore 2018 in the process.
And the 39-year-old admits he crossed the finish line much happier than when he began.
“I felt much better in Lap 63 than in Lap 1 thanks to all the experience that you go through during the race,” said Alonso via Formula1.com.
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“It was perfect for me to understand the car in these slippier conditions, and how it was transitioning from wets to inters, inters to dry, one red flag, one standing start, one rolling start. We did a lot of things today that normally take five or six races… Everything was compressed in one Sunday, so a lot of learnings, a lot of feelings with the car.”
Even so, Alonso would finish one place behind Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon, something he says he “expected”.
“I did not perform well,” he added later.
“People have to understand that when you go to play a tennis match at Roland Garros or Wimbledon, you do a little training on that surface, you adapt to things and in Formula 1, we had three days in Bahrain, a day and a half for each driver and then you go into the World Championship.
“It’s like preparing for the Olympics without any kind of training, that’s what we do.
“But this cannot be an excuse to say I did not perform well. I have to be more prepared and more ready next time. It doesn’t matter if you have little time, or no time in the car, I will try to be better next time.
“Now we have a racing binge in the coming weeks and they will come in handy to continue improving and continuing to adapt as best as possible.”