Not quite a fun time for Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso at the F1 Brazil GP. With both cars being severely damaged during an usual Sunday morning qualifying under the rain, mechanics had to rush to have both cars ready just on time for the early afternoon race.
Certainly not a walk in the park for the team considering there were only a few hours between the two sessions.
And with Lance Stroll retiring after losing control of his single-seater at Turn 4 on the formation lap, the only AMR24 on track for the F1 Brazil GP was Fernando Alonso.
A responsibility the World Champion felt loud and clear after all the work the team had put into such quick reparations.
And so, despite the difficult conditions on the bumpy surface of the track that caused him back pain, he opened the radio to let the team know retirement was not on the agenda.
“I will finish the race for the mechanics. They did a very good job today. But my back is hurting, man. This bouncing is not normal.
“There was a lot of bouncing, a lot of porpoising in the second half of the race. I don’t know why, but it was a tough race. We were out of the points,” he said after the race.
“I think in any other circumstances, probably I would have stopped. But the mechanics did an incredible job before the race to put the car ready on the grid, so I had to finish it for them.”
Ultimately Alonso finished the race in P14, behind Valtteri Bottas.
“It was painful, for sure. The lead-up to this race, it was a lot of preparation from my side, a lot of checks, a lot of work, a lot of physio and doctors in order to come here in Brazil,” he explained.
A lot of preparations also given the fact that he had experienced an intestinal infection after the Mexican Grand Prix, which forced him to fly back to Europe in between the two races in order to get treated.
“So it was a lot of effort from everybody: the same effort as the mechanics put today,” he continued.
Recalling the struggles of the race at the F1 Brazil GP, Alonso was thinking about the people affected by the floods in Spain.
“It was not comfortable in the car. But there are people worse than me, also in Valencia, we have these terrible images. And people struggling. So I had to struggle a couple of laps for everybody.”
Back in Mexico City, he had to retire early from the race after suffering a brake cooling issue caused by some debris stuck in his car.
And it was brakes again that made Aston struggle in Interlagos, along with bouncing issues.
“I think Lance had the brake problem in the formation lap, and I had the brake issue after all the restarts, where all the brake balance goes completely rearwards. It was like braking with a hand brake,” explained Alonso.
“So all in all it was a nightmare out there. We need to get better for the next three.”
