The experienced driver, Alonso, had a good lap time that would have put him in 13th place on his final lap. But because of other drivers improving their times, he fell into the bottom five. He couldn’t try again because he had already pitted, and there wasn’t enough time left for another lap.
Alonso talked about how luck plays a big role in Monaco because of the traffic on the track. He supported the idea of using group qualifying, like they do in Formula 2 and Formula 3, to minimize the impact of getting stuck behind slower cars.
In group qualifying, they combine the times from two groups to set the grid. The driver with the fastest time overall gets pole position, and the leader of the other group starts second.
Alonso mentioned that sometimes luck is on your side, like last year when he did well in qualifying. But this time, he and Checo Perez were unlucky.
He thought he lost time at two corners, Nouvelle Chicane and Rascasse, which made it hard for him to improve his lap time.
Alonso didn’t think his car could have gotten pole position, but he believed it was good enough for 7th or 8th place. He said that Monaco is a difficult track to get a clean lap on, and he got held up by other cars.
For the race on Sunday, his goal was to avoid crashing and finish the race. He mentioned that they bring many upgrades during this part of the season, so the standard parts aren’t great. He didn’t think pitting early would help much because many other drivers would do the same thing, like what happened in Imola.
