Fernando Alonso felt that testing a number of things perhaps compromised their finishing positions during practice for the German Grand Prix on Friday, and he hopes to recover those places on Saturday.
The McLaren F1 Team racer ended twelfth fastest in the morning session at the Hockenheimring but was down in seventeenth in the afternoon, but the two-to-three tenths of a second he felt he could have found could quite easily have put him inside the top ten, such was the closeness of the midfield pack.
“We tested a lot of things today and we probably compromised our final positions because of that,” said Alonso, who was 1.751 seconds off the pace of pacesetter Max Verstappen in the second session. “We have been in quite a good place on Friday in the last couple of races, and it’s a matter of fact that with two or three tenths you can lose or gain a lot of positions.
“Here in Hockenheim we’ve lost a few positions.”
Alonso hopes to recover the pace on Saturday, and with cooler conditions predicted and possibly rain in the mix, he hopes to take any opportunity that prevents itself to him and fight for a possible top ten starting position.
“Hopefully this will change tomorrow, and there could be some rain around qualifying time, which is a big question mark,” said Alonso. “It’s going to be cooler, cloudy and maybe even wet, so if that happens it opens up an opportunity for the midfield group and you can gamble a little bit more.”
