Alonso says Aston Martin ‘need to get used to’ not scoring in 2025 as he reflects on dramatic near-miss with protégé Bortoleto in Jeddah

Fernando Alonso’s race result in Saudi Arabia might have read P11, agonisingly close to the points, but that did not tell the true story of how his Grand Prix unfolded.

Starting 13th on the medium tyres, Alonso made inroads on the opening lap but was unable to hold onto the places he had gained as faster cars began to make their way past.

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From there, points always looked unlikely and he was running 12th at the chequered flag – being promoted to P11 when Liam Lawson’s time penalty for overtaking off-track was applied.

“I think we need a lot of performance,” Alonso said after the race. “Today we are P11 mostly because Yuki [Tsunoda] and [Pierre] Gasly had the contact in Lap 1, and Liam had the 10-second penalty. If not we were P14, so [there’s] still a long way to go.”

“I gave everything on track and it was hard to keep up the pace with the cars in front – we were just not quick enough. P11 is the worst position probably, but we need to get used to it. It’s going to be difficult to score points this year.”

One moment that did get everyone’s attention was when Alonso tried to overtake Gabriel Bortoleto, who was battling with Lawson at the time.

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The Brazilian seemingly did not realise the Spaniard was attacking on the outside and the duo made light contact, with Alonso forced to run off track to avoid a further collision.

“It was close,” Alonso said of the moment with a driver who is part of his management stable. “I chose to go on the outside, some risk by doing that. He obviously didn’t see me, and I had to take avoiding action in Turn 2.

“I gave back quickly the position because I was not making the corner to [avoid] any penalty, but it was close.”

As for Lance Stroll, he went the longest of anyone in the opening stint on a set of the hard compound tyre, hoping for a Safety Car. But when that did not materialise and he was forced to stop, the Canadian fell down the order and finished 16th.

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“Your tyres are dead, and you know you have to hold the position in the race, whatever we were, 13th or something,” he explained.

“We had to stop, but to get something out of the race we had to keep going and hope for a Safety Car. That’s what we did, unfortunately it didn’t come to us, but it was the only chance we had to pick something up.”