Alonso's happiness, his talk with Sainz and two seconds for concern

• Chronicle Fernando Alonso gives another lesson to Carlos Sainz and touches the podium in Baku
• Controversy The clash between Fernando Alonso and Antonio Lobato: "We had a small discussion on WhatsApp"
• Lobato Opinion: Fernando Alonso's Unstoppable Symphony

In the bowels of the paddock at the Baku circuit, near Aston Martin's motorhome, Fernando Alonso chatted animatedly with his longtime adviser, Flavio Briatore, team owner Lawrence Stroll, and teammate – and owner's son – Lance Stroll. There was a good atmosphere. There was even joy. After the worst result of the season... How was it possible? Aston Martin and Alonso left Azerbaijan on Sunday with the same sense of success as after podiums in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia, with an even better one.

Alonso's fourth place was the realization that this season there will be victories and that utopian objective, to discuss the World Championship to the Red Bulls, is not so much. Will it be next year? Will it be in 2025? The horizon is illegible, but it is diaphanous, sunny, radiant. If there was any doubt after the first three races, during the strange break in April, there is none left. For several reasons.

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Formula 1.

Fernando Alonso imparts another lesson to Carlos Sainz and touches the podium in Baku

• Writing: JAVIER SÁNCHEZ

Fernando Alonso imparts another lesson to Carlos Sainz and touches the podium in Baku

First of all because the urban layout of Baku was one of the worst in the championship for Aston Martin. Its long straights underlined the weak point of the car, its top speed, and the absence of linked corners canceled out its greatest virtue, its aerodynamics. During free practice and qualifying, Alonso found himself far from the Ferraris and even behind Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and that's why he set the Top 5 as a target. In the end, he almost stormed the podium of Charles Leclerc, who started from pole and finished third with less than a second ahead of the Spaniard.

"Ferrari had a perfect weekend. They took pole in the main race and in the sprint race, their car was super fast, and despite that we were only one second behind. In the team we have already become aware of our situation, we are in a place we did not expect to be and we have many talented people in the factory, "warned the two-time Formula 1 champion in new praise to his mechanics.

The DRS, solved

No wonder. For the first time this season Aston Martin suffered a mechanical problem and was able to solve it in time. The British team placed on the Azeri circuit a new rear wing on their car, a key piece, an invention that should increase the maximum speed, and the novelty annoyed the DRS. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. On Friday, in the only free practice session, panic set in. Alonso could stand in the race devoid of the system that most helps in overtaking, both his own and those of others. But in the end everything was solved. On Saturday in the sprint race the ingenuity already worked and this Sunday in the classic race did not fail even once. In his attack on Hamilton, which took him from sixth to fifth, DRS was essential.

"For us it has been a complicated weekend, really. We had problems with the DRS and also with the set-up", Alonso accepted with more reasons for happiness. Because his car flew where he was not expected to do so and his team diligently solved the first mishap of the year, but also his partner presented himself as a faithful squire.

"Tell Fernando that I will not try to attack him. We are in the same strategy," Stroll proclaimed over the radio in the opening laps, before Alonso passed Hamilton. The two Aston Martin drivers had to hope that the Mercedes leader's high tyre degradation would cause him to lose position, but along the way Stroll could try to vindicate himself against Alonso. He didn't. And the Spaniard somehow thanked the gesture a few laps later asking by radio to pass his telemetry to Stroll in case it helped.

NATALIA KOLESNIKOVAAFP

In the end the Canadian could not overcome Hamilton and finished seventh, but it was shown that everyone goes to one. "I didn't feel comfortable with the car and I made some mistakes [on one occasion it almost hit the wall]. As a team we have several things to work on, but we can be satisfied, "said Stroll after congratulating Alonso for his best maneuver, the maneuver that gave him fourth place, surely the most memorable maneuver of the race.

The only but

After passing Hamilton, the safety car appeared and the Aston Martin leader took advantage of precisely that circumstance to place fourth. As soon as he left, the re-exit was his time. The accordion effect usually hinders the less clever and this time it was Carlos Sainz who suffered the acceleration of his compatriot. In turn four, on the inside, Alonso pushed the Ferrari aside and in a few laps it was going and marching and marching. In the end, the gap to Sainz rose to 20 seconds.

It was a clean action, thankfully, that calmed the tension between the two created in Australia and stoked on Saturday in the Baku sprint race. According to Alonso acknowledged to MARCA, in fact, just before yesterday's race he spoke with Sainz about what happened and confessed that the controversial action of the previous day was not so serious. "We spoke after the anthem and everything is fine. Sometimes things like that happen. When I saw the video I realized it was less than I thought," he confessed.

With all this, with so many reasons for illusion, Alonso and Aston Martin will be planted next Sunday in Miami with options to climb back into a drawer. The American circuit is not ideal either, but it does demand more from the cars, punishes the tires more, and seen what has been seen the British team should be in front of Ferrari. Just after three European tracks will arrive, Imola, Monaco and Montmeló, where you can dream of the 33rd victory of Alonso's career, but in Miami third place must be the goal again.

If anything from Baku, the Spaniard and his team left with a point to improve. After finishing less than a second behind Leclerc's third-place finish, his pit times deserve criticism. While the rest of the teams can change tires and refuel in less than three seconds, Alonso's stop was extended beyond four. In the previous three races, Aston Martin's mechanics weren't the fastest either, but this time they were directly the slowest. In the oasis of Alonso, a slight concern.

• Fernando Alonso
• Articles Javier Sánchez

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