Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team ©
Yesterday in an interview with Autosport, Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso stated that he nearly joined Sebastian Vettel in the pitlane for the US GP, but Ferrari decided to use an older engine.
Alonso is also cutting it fine in terms of engines and Ferrari considered a pitlane start, but they decided to go down another route, and the lack of power from the old engine told on Saturday as the Spaniard was only sixth fastest.
In his interview with Autosport yesterday, Alonso stated the following on the subject:-
‘We were a couple of tenths down on the engine because we have some limitations there after the Monza engine failure. In fact we were discussing last week using the sixth engine and starting from the pitlane like Red Bull will, or using a very old engine with a little bit less power but at least we wouldn’t need to recover places.
‘We chose the second option, so probably we are missing a little bit of performance here and there.’
As Alonso says in his interview yesterday, even though they may need to use an sixth engine this season and have discussed the possibility of doing so, they were able to use an old engine and didn’t have to take a penalty this weekend in Austin. It is clear that the old engine is a bit down of performance but Alonso seems happy enough to use that engine for this weekend.
Further on in his interview with Autosport yesterday, when asked if he thought he could get through the last three grands prix of 2014 within the five-engine limit, Alonso replied with the following:-
‘We are doing all these things to not take the sixth. If we can manage here and Brazil, then we must not have a penalty in Abu Dhabi because it is double points.
‘We have a better engine available. We need to put the better one in Abu Dhabi, so we’ll manage these races. I think we’ll be OK. We have probably lost out today because of the power, but I’m still in my normal position of sixth. I’d prefer to start sixth, a couple of tenths down because of power, rather than at the back.’
Of course Alonso doesn’t want to use an sixth engine this season, but it is looking ever more likely that he may need to just like a few other drivers on the grid. Of course Alonso will not want to miss out on double points in Abu Dhabi but you cannot predict the life cycle of an engine either.
But Alonso feels that the situation is managable and believes that he will be okay for the last two races of the season. It would seem that Alonso is happy to have qualified sixth and would rather start there than be at the back of the grid and rightly so.
But even though Alonso believes that the situation regarding his engines is managable, he will be keeping an close eye on it. He has managed to escape taking an sixth engine and a penalty this weekend in Austin. But will Alonso be able to one of a few drivers not to receive a penalty for an sixth engine change in 2014? Only time will tell.
