Fernando Alonso has criticised how Formula 1’s broadcaster, FOM, portrays him through the use of “grumpy” radio exchanges at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Alonso and Aston Martin endured a challenging start to the season finale weekend in Abu Dhabi, with the AMR24 proving to be significantly off the pace during practice.
After finishing 11th in the first session, he dropped to 17th in FP2, struggling for speed in qualifying and race simulations, leading to predictions of a tough weekend.
The situation failed to improve in the final session on Saturday morning, with Alonso angrily taking to the radio after the chequered flag to voice his displeasure at his team.
In scenes reminiscent of his infamous “GP engine” radio outburst aimed at Honda during his ill-fated McLaren spell in 2015, Alonso ruthlessly attacked the execution of his running plan.
The Spaniard radioed his team while returning to the pits, voicing his frustrations over Aston Martin’s spectacular decline that has left it a distant fifth in the Constructors’ Championship.
“Worst car ever, and worst traffic preparation ever. Next time I will do the out-lap myself,” he cuttingly stated.
Displeasure with FOM
After qualifying, Alonso explained the reasoning behind his outburst, stating that traffic caused him frustration, attacking FOM over his constant negative image.
The two-time World Champion accused F1’s broadcaster of having a “fix” at promoting negative comments, revealing his issue with how it has portrayed him for a number of years.
“It was a bad traffic”, Alonso said. “It was a frustration building.
“But yeah, as usual, you know, some comments are good, some comments are bad, but FOM has this fix with me, with bad comments – but I’m happy with that. It’s their job.
“Yesterday I had some positive things [to say] as well but as I said, FOM, they have to sell that I’m the grumpy guy. They tried for many years and they will not succeed.
“I didn’t have a good time [in practice] but I think all these conversations are very private with your engineer. You are trying sometimes different things.
“You speak about some out-lap preparations that maybe I don’t agree with the engineers.
“They want to try anyway, it doesn’t work. So you tell them, ‘Wow, you know this – we knew it beforehand’, or something like that.
“But when you don’t have all that context behind and you just put the radio message, it’s just wrong. But it is the way they do it,” he remarked.
Rescuing a potentially difficult qualifying
The Spaniard later praised Aston Martin for turning around its performance nadir at the start of the weekend after he reached Q3 and outqualifed the likes of Sergio Perez to line up eighth.
“We seemed to find the right window with the car in Qualifying and I am happy to start in eighth position tomorrow,” Alonso confirmed.
“The car has been quite disconnected this weekend, and so we made some setup changes overnight.
“The car felt much better tonight and I managed to put in some good laps to progress to Q3.
“We will try our best to enjoy the final race of the season tomorrow and hopefully score some more points.”
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