Fernando Alonso keeping his "feet on the ground" despite searing Alpine pace

Alonso, Alpine, Hungary — Photo: © LAT Images

Hungarian Grand Prix

Alonso keeping his "feet on the ground" despite searing Alpine pace

Alonso finished P6 and P7 in practice in Hungary

Ewan Gale

Friday 30 July 2021 19:50

Fernando Alonso has insisted Alpine is keeping its "feet on the ground" over its Hungarian Grand Prix prospects despite a promising Friday of running.

The Spaniard began the day with a spin at the high speed turn four but recovered to finish sixth quickest in FP1 and seventh in the second session at the Hungaroring, with team-mate Esteban Ocon confirming the A521's pace by finishing fourth in FP2.

High track temperatures made the conditions treacherously difficult but despite this, Alonso was able to run through multiple practice programmes whilst carrying on his impressive pace from recent races.

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On his day, Alonso said: "It was okay. It was very hot and humid today so it was a very demanding day physically, for the mechanics as well, for everyone in the team.

"We did manage to complete the whole programme, no issues there, testing the three compounds of tyres and a lot of information.

"We are not totally happy with the tyres yet so there is more to come and hopefully tomorrow we can see more performance.

"I don't think Friday is really important. We have seen some weekends where Friday is a bit more competitive than what we see on Saturday and Sunday so we still have our feet on the ground knowing that Q3 is still a big target for us.

"Let's see what we can do but so far so good."

Alonso - Return to normality "more relaxed"

The event in Hungary is the first venture back to normality after the sprint qualifying trial at the British Grand Prix.

With the ability to cycle through practice regimes without the looming presence of a Friday qualifying session to contend with, Alonso pointed to the benefit for teams.

"It was different, more relaxed for us because we have more practice," he explained.

"We will change the car tonight, test it in FP3 so there is this flexibility that teams, drivers, we love to prepare to perfection the qualifying and the race.

"For the fans, they want to see more action on the Friday so as I said at Silverstone, we need to hear what they say, listen to the fans and take some action for the future developments on the format of the weekend."