"On the next 20, we will be super lucky" – Fernando Alonso positive of Alpine's chances during long F1 season ahead

Fernando Alonso hopes his poor streak of fortune in the last three races will be overturned in the next 20 races on the F1 calendar. The Alpine driver believes the first safety car in the Australian GP was an unlucky moment in the race that cost him a competitive result.

Drawing positives from the result and explaining his fortunes, Fernando Alonso said:

“Yeah obviously that is the problem, there is no guarantee that we are fast. On weekends when we are fast, everything happens on our car, on our side. So this is crazy. But with three rounds gone super-unlucky. On the next 20, we will be super lucky. So let’s see.”

Speaking after the race, the Spaniard believes bad luck has hampered his side of the garage on the weekends when the car pace was competitive. The Alpine driver, however, hopes that fortunes will turn in his favor in the remaining races on the calendar.

---

Fernando Alonso believes the first Safety Car was damaging

In both Saudi Arabia and Australia, Fernando Alonso looked competitive enough to snatch a podium. In Jeddah, however, the Spanish driver had to retire from the race due to a fuel pump issue. Melbourne, too, saw a similar hydraulics issue affecting his qualifying.

Subsequently, despite running as far as fourth place during the race, the safety cars and virtual safety cars cost him a competitive result. Explaining his unfortunate race scenario where he finished last, the two-time world champion said:

“Well I think we’ve been extremely unlucky with the safety car in lap 20 or 22. Safety car came in and obviously we were looking for P6 or P7, which was a great comeback and with that safety car everyone regroups and our edge was gone. The second safety car or virtual safety car we pitted just to change tyres and obviously it was too early to finish the race on yellows [medium compound]. We gambled on that, but the killer was the safety car so it is. I am speechless. We did a mega weekend in Saudi and here specially and we have zero points in the two races which is difficult to explain.”

Although Fernando Alonso clocked a competitive lap towards the end of the race, it was representative of the raw pace available in the Alpine challenger. While reliability has thwarted his chances over the last two weekends, the positive takeaway has been that his qualifying lap in Australia was set for a second or third place classification.