Fernando Alonso has completely turned back the clock to his glory days of dominating the Formula One racetrack. Yesterday, the 41-year-old driver was too quick on the circuit and finished inside the top three as expected. Nevertheless, Charles Leclerc’s 10-place penalty even moved him up to a much better spot, the front row. And, after putting up some excellent performances in qualifying, Alonso has started his mind games.

Following a strong performance at the Bahrain Grand Prix, team Aston Martin felt very confident about the Saudi GP as the AMR23 was built to run well on such courses. However, as the weekend began, it was all Red Bull and Max Verstappen who topped all the practice sessions, and things were proceeding somewhat similarly in qualifying. But then came the twist that all the chasing packs may have been hoping for: Verstappen had a drive shaft issue that forced him to quit from Q2.

In the end, Sergio Perez recorded the fastest time and earned the pole position. Alonso expressed hesitation when asked if he will challenge Checo on Sunday. As per Formula1.com, he said, “I don’t think so, I don’t think so. I don’t want to sound pessimistic but if we see the pace, the whole weekend in free practice, if we see the Bahrain race, we have to be honest with ourselves and know that Red Bull is a little bit ahead of everyone so that’s not, let’s say, the target tomorrow, you know, to fight for the win with Checo [Perez].”

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Though Alonso has stated that attacking Red Bull is not his priority, he will definitely look to secure the podium. His realistic approach might have a slight bit of mind games involved in it. Keeping this in mind, the Double Champion said he wants to focus on the teams behind the Aston Martin.

Leaving the fight with Red Bull, Fernando Alonso mentions the teams he wants to look out for

Since the Canadian Grand Prix a year ago, yesterday marked the first qualifying session in which Alonso secured a spot on the front row. And while being confident about performing better on Sunday, the double champion also believes that Red Bull still leads the rest of the field, and mentions where the actual race begins for the Aston Martin.

In his post-qualifying interview, he said, “On pure pace, I think Red Bull is in another league and I think we have to concentrate more on the teams behind. So Ferrari will be very strong, Mercedes are strong, also Alpine – they are fast here.”

In addition, the Spaniard also claims that it was only due to the mechanical issue that Verstappen ended up in P15 and he believes that the dutchman can easily finish in the top three, he added, “I think our race is just behind us. We saw today Max probably was in his league today in qualifying and he could not complete the qualifying with a mechanical issue.”

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Fernando Alonso’s quickness and clever maneuver may have made Red Bull reconsider their chances at the Saudi shores. Besides, the time is also ripe as Verstappen will start from P15 on Sunday. So do you think Alonso can accomplish his El plan at the Jeddah circuit on Sunday?