The double world champion was forced to start Sunday’s 71-lap grand prix from the back of the grid after his Alpine went into “full blackout” ahead of Saturday’s sprint race, which he was due to start from ninth.
Alpine put Alonso on the hard tyre to begin with, which he used to coast into the top 10 as the medium runners around him made their first stops.
He made his first pitstop on lap 27 for another set of hard tyres, then made his planned switch to mediums when the virtual safety car was called for Carlos Sainz’s expiring Ferrari on lap 57.
But vibrations on those tyres “after the first sector” on his outlap forced him to pit again on the very next lap, which dropped him to 14th before he fought through to take a single point in 10th.
Alonso believed it was possible to finish sixth, just behind team-mate Esteban Ocon, before the problem arose, but said he “was very pleased and upbeat about the car performance” in the race.
When asked by Autosport why he made a third stop, Alonso joked: “To have more fun and more overtaking!
“It was a tricky race, at the beginning we were all in a DRS train and that was quite difficult to overtake, but I felt so much faster than the cars around.
“In a way I’m very pleased and upbeat about the car performance today, because cars that we are fighting normally with, today they were really slow compared to our pace so that’s a very good sign.
“Once they pitted, we had some free air and we maximised our strategy, hard-hard-medium.
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522, Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR22
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“We pitted under the VSC and we were heading to P6, because I was just behind Lando [Norris] with new tyres doing 1m08s at the end, it was very easy to pass them.
“Maybe finishing just behind Esteban [was possible] which could be amazing for the team, fifth and sixth, especially starting last.
“And I felt huge vibrations on the tyres immediately after the first sector so we decided to pit again. I exit P14, nine laps to go and I recovered to P10.”
Alpine team boss Otmar Szafanauer says the cause of the vibration remains unknown at this stage, but ruled out it being a problem with the fitting of the wheel itself due to a new locking system the squad has.
“I don’t know what was causing the vibration yet,” he said.
“But we came in, had a look around and we had a new set of mediums, which was good, and we changed to the new set of mediums, he…
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