Pressiteade
Fernando produced a brilliant final two lapsfollowing a late race restart that left the Spaniard leaving Baku with his bestresult in Formula 1 since the Australian Grand Prix in 2018.
For the race start Fernando and Esteban launched offtheir grid positions well with both drivers gaining places during the openingexchanges of the 306.049km race distance. By the end of lap one, Fernando wasin seventh with his teammate just outside the points in eleventh.
Just a few laps later Esteban’s day was brought to anabrupt end on lap 4 after he suffered a sudden loss of power that forced him tobox his A521 and retire from the race.
In the sole remaining car, Fernando was one of thefirst to switch to the more durable Hard compound and decided to pit on lap 7.Most of the field starting on Soft tyres followed suit just a few laps later –and with the order chopping and changing – the Spaniard eventually stabilisedhis position just outside the top ten in twelfth.
A timely safety car was then brought out on lap 31for Lance Stroll’s incident on the main straight, allowing Fernando to pit forfresh Soft tyres once the pitlane was re-opened.
With fresher rubber than those ahead, Fernando gaineda few places and targeted the top ten positions but couldn’t make inroads onDaniel Ricciardo’s McLaren who was holding onto tenth place. The result lookedset before a red flag was waved for Max Verstappen’s crash, bringing the entirefield into the pitlane and throwing the last two laps into a pure sprint to thefinish.
After a lengthy break the session resumed for astanding restart. Fitted with scrubbed Soft tyres, Fernando saved his best tillthe end and put on a driving masterclass. He first carved his way past severalcars into turn one, before a brave overtake on Yuki Tsunoda on the outside ofturn five to storm home to sixth position around the Baku City Circuit.
Esteban Ocon, started P12, finished DNF
“I didn’t seem to catch a break here, it’s verytricky obviously and we had a pressure loss and had to retire the car veryearly on. We had a good start and I was in front of both McLarens and fightingwith those around us. I was doing my race and it was going well and the pacewas there for the top ten, which Fernando showed in the end. It was not ourweekend, that’s clear, but we will turn the page and look forward to the nextone, the French Grand Prix. It’s going to be an awesome one for me, I can’twait to race there again.”
Fernando Alonso, started P8, finished P6
“I am happy for the team that we took some goodpoints from this weekend, I felt we deserved it after a challenging weekend.The final laps were a lot of fun and we tried to attack and be aggressive torecover some places. The weekend was quite solid for us but we did lack alittle bit of pace during the race. So we need to review that but I am happywith the day in the end and we’ll look to take this forward into France.”
Marcin Budkowski, ExecutiveDirector:
“The race didn’t start well with Esteban having tostop with a power unit problem and Fernando’s race pace was not competitive,for which we need to understand the reasons. Overall it wasn’t a great afternoonbut we can be glad that the two drivers who had issues were fine and it didgive us some exciting action after the restart. The heart-warming positive wassome Fernando magic to regain three positions and finish P6, which is a greatreward for everyone’s hard work. He’s back in a very competitive state and wenow need to work together to get back on form at the next race in France.”
