Fernando Alonso Believes Alpine Can Target Ferrari’s F1 Weakness Exposed at French GP

It was evident that Fernando Alonso was not having a pleasant time during his return to F1. However, after having a troublesome start to the season, the 2-time world champion has finally found his feet in the Alpine car.

Furthermore, the former Ferrari man claims Alpine can beat the Maranello-based team at tracks where tire degradation is high.

Fernando Alonso discovered his old form after recent excellent performances. He added 12 points to his driver’s championship tally from the previous two race weekends. Moreover, he sits at P11 in the driver’s standings five points ahead of his teammate.

The 2-time world champion lined up behind both the Ferrari cars at the French GP and finished ahead of them. Furthermore, the Spaniard hopes Alpine can show more of the same at tracks where tyre degradation is high.

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What did Fernando Alonso say?

The Prancing Horses displayed yet another convincing performance during qualifying at Paul Ricard. With Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc qualifying at P5 and P7, respectively. But it turns out to be a disastrous Sunday for Ferrari as both their drivers struggled with tire degradation.

In addition, the Ferrari duo dramatically dropped down the order as they failed to add any points in the championship tally and could only finish P11 and P16.

“In qualifying, they are four-tenths or half a second faster. But then in the race, there are some circuits [where] they are very hard on tires like a Portimao or here, and we have the chance to fight with them, which is always nice,” said the former Ferrari driver, Fernando Alonso.

“But we saw in the street circuits, I think, that amount of energy that they put on the tyre is a help in some of the street circuits. We saw Leclerc on pole position in Monaco and Baku.”

‘Tire degradation will happen again this season’: Mattia Binotto

Ferrari had a terrible weekend at Circuit Paul Ricard as both of their drivers failed to finish in the Top-10.

The Maranello-based team had been outstanding in qualifying, particularly during the qualifications at Monaco and Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Charles Leclerc won successive pole positions.

Meanwhile, Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto believes changes cannot be made to their current car. Furthermore, he also admits that the tire issue will happen again at some races.

“Can we develop it through a simple development on the current car? Probably we could improve the situation but to solve it would need some hardware change, for example, the rims, which is not possible in the regulation,” said Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto.

“It is more important for us that we are at the stage where we can understand and try to address it for next year. In the meanwhile, this issue will happen again at some races but not all of the tracks.

After the French Grand Prix, the Red bumped down to P4 in the Constructors’ Championship standings after McLaren displayed an impressive performance at La Castellet. McLaren sits at P3, 16 points ahead of Ferrari.

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Can Ferrari make a comeback at the Styrian Grand Prix this weekend? What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.