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Fernando Alonso pulls out muscle on Alpine’s home circuit

It is not easy to make predictions about the performance of Fernando Alonso and Alpine in this Formula 1 season. Paul Ricard was presented as a circuit in which the performance would be more regular for the cars that are not used to being up, but With the exception of the dominance of Red Bull and Mercedes (Hamilton did not press and between Verstappen and Bottas there were only eight thousandths), behind there was extreme equality. And in that Macedonian team, the Anglo-French cars were in the upper zone.

Fernando Alonso consummated his best Friday two weeks after his best Sunday since he returned to Formula 1. The fourth place with which he finished the afternoon practice session knows a lot, since it not only confirms that these problems with the hard tires are beginning to leave them behind (he stint of more than 20 laps with them and at a very constant pace), but the slight evolutions of the team (in the end it has not been the promised revolution) have given the right performance as for aspiring to the podium is in the hands of a failure of those above. The recently renewed Esteban Ocon stayed two positions behind Alonso, which means that one cannot only speak of a magnificent lap for the Asturian: the A521 is doing well in Paul Ricard’s sea of ​​curves.

“We faced some difficult track conditions, with gusts of wind and high temperatures, but we can be quite proud of what we have achieved in Friday’s practice. We will analyze the data, but for the moment I think we are quite competitive here, “Alonso happily summarized, this time he did not hide his satisfaction. If in the first free practice the final sixth place was explained by having used only soft tires, in the second he did alternate the three types of wheels here. With all of them it was competitive. Nothing is gained by being up in free practice, but much less is lost.

The dangerous limits of the track

Paul Ricard is designed in such a way that it is practically impossible for two categories to run along the exact same route if you don’t want to. Its variety of curves is such that it can be configured in 247 different ways just by putting some cones there or some barriers there.

In the one chosen by Formula 1 they face the same problem that has happened in all the permanent circuits this year: how to control that the pilots do not gain an advantage by going off the track to take advantage of the outside of the curves. Both in Monaco and in Baku this was penalized by an accident, but in the sea of ​​curves that is the Le Castellet circuit it is a factor to take into account. To avoid this, the FIA ​​has implemented two solutions.

The first are elongated barriers, similar to the speed bumps found on any street in Spain. The popularly known as ‘lying guards’ and, in this case, ‘bananas’. The effectiveness so that the drivers do not get on the pianos more than they should is absolute, because these barriers not only delimit the border, but can actually literally break the car. Several, Bottas for example, verified it. If the drivers and the stewards do not reach an agreement (they will have several meetings throughout the weekend before the race), they will stay in all the curves of the circuit, including number 2 which is the most tricky in this regard.

The other great enemy of fans of track escapes is the asphalt outside the circuit itself. The colorful blue, white and red pattern on the outside of the track hides a track that is almost sandpaper. Crossing it with the wheels locked means smashing the tires and leaving them on the tarps, literally. It happened to Carlos Sainz, who had a somewhat gray Friday, when in the first free practice he slipped into a long corner and left the rear right wheel to drag. He was not the only one: Sebastian Vettel, podium in Baku, or Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin (the most common in these events), also suffered.

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