Fernando Alonso is pleasantly surprised with thirteenth on the grid for the 2018 Italian Grand Prix following the Spaniard’s struggles in practice.
“After yesterday’s poor performance we were expecting a tough Q1,” said Alonso, “but the team made a lot of changes overnight and the car was faster today. Starting tomorrow in P13 is a good surprise, and unthinkable a couple of hours ago.
“I’m a bit worried tomorrow we might come back to reality and struggle in the race, but let’s see how it goes. We start in a position close to the points, so with a good start and a good strategy anything could happen.
Alonso was involved in a controversial moment at the end of Q2 with the Haas F1 Team car of Kevin Magnussen. The pair appeared side-by-side entering their final hot laps to progress to Q3. Both drivers tripped over each other with Magnussen appearing to lose the most, ending up five grid positions behind his team-mate.
“At the end of Q2, we had a strange situation,” Alonso explains. “We were a few cars together on the out-lap, trying to find the gap between each other and trying to prepare the tyres. At the very last moment, on the inside of the Parabolica, Kevin [Magnussen] decided to overtake me and fill the gap between my car and the car in front of me. In Parabolica you normally launch the out-lap and start accelerating, but we arrived together into Turn One and we both lost the lap.
“It doesn’t change much for me, because I think the position I am in is what I deserve, but definitely for him it’s a shame because he could be in Q3, looking at his team-mate’s position.”
