The Spaniard admitted that the drying qualifying session had been stressful and joked that his risk-taking had not been good for his heart.
Crucially, Alonso lines up ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris, giving Alpine an edge in the ongoing battle for fourth in the World Championship.
The race marks Alonso’s 350th race start, making him the first driver in F1 history to reach that landmark.
“I think if it’s dry, it’s going to be difficult to overtake,” he said. “So it will be nice to secure the top five and score more points than McLaren, which will be the main target again. If it’s wet obviously, there are a lot of things that could happen.
“It could be very good race for us, or very bad, if you crash or whatever maybe it could be a DNF. So it’s a lot of risk if it’s wet tomorrow, but we are two positions away from the podium. So why not dream big tonight?”
Alono had shown good form throughout qualifying, earning fifth on intermediates in Q2 as the track dried, before repeating that on slicks in the final session.
“It was stressful, no doubt, even borderline to be enjoyable, I think because the level of risk and stress was quite high,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com about an eventful session.
“When we fitted the dry tyres in Q3 it was a brave move from everybody, because it was just a guess.
“Eventually it was the right decision, but to go every lap faster and faster than the lap before, going into the corner just hoping that the car will stay on track, and the track will be drier than one minute and a half ago when you went through that corner, is just a lot of stress. So hopefully tomorrow a little bit more calm a race.”
Fernando Alonso, Alpine F1 Team
Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
Asked if he enjoyed the risks, he said: “No, because I’m not fighting for the world championship, so it cannot be good for my heart to take this level of risk for really not much reward! I do it always, even if I’m P20 I will take the same level of risk. But today was a little bit on top of any other qualifying of the year.”
The performance was achieved with Alpine’s new floor, but while Alonso agreed that it worked as intended, he downplayed its actual contribution to lap time.
“It was a step forward with the data that we collected yesterday. So happy with the step. I think we need to wait for Suzuka to really feel the package a little bit more because here in Singapore every run there is a track evolution,…
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