Fernando Alonso's plea after a "too dangerous" race in Qatar: "Pour water on me!"

The scenes in the closed park did not leave anyone indifferent in Losail. The joy of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris for McLaren's double podium, with which the Woking team now exceeds half a thousand in the history of F1, was confused with extreme fatigue. “It was one of the hardest races of our lives.. And I'm not going to believe anyone who says otherwise,” said Charles Leclerc, fifth in a Qatar GP that has become an explosive cocktail for the drivers.

At 9:00 p.m., when the traffic lights went out, the thermometer still measured 31ºC in Losail, bathed by a timid desert breeze that did not diminish the feeling of suffocation.. There was another condition to the weather factor, courtesy of the FIA: the three mandatory steps through the pits to change the tires.. “With the three stops we almost always had to go full throttle, so there were 57 qualifying laps,” clarified Piastri..

Among the list of those affected, almost half of the grid, the Williams duo stood out. Logan Sargeant, who had been suffering from the flu for days, had to withdraw due to severe dehydration. His teammate Alexander Albon suffered acute heat exposure, for which he was examined at the medical center.

“We'll have to talk about it”

“It's frustrating, because I guess through television it probably didn't seem as demanding. But when there are so many abandonments or some end so badly, it is clear that in these conditions it is too dangerous to drive at such speed,” Norris developed..

Added to the high temperatures and the merciless abuse of the tires, whose life had to be reduced to 18 laps, were the peculiar characteristics of Losail, a circuit with very tight curves and aggressive curbs.. “Next season, if we find ourselves in the same situation, we will have to talk about it among ourselves,” predicted Leclerc about this Grand Prix, which has just renewed its contract with F1 for the next 10 seasons.

Likewise, drowning took its toll on Esteban Ocon, as he himself admitted through the radio of his Alpine. “I already suggested that you give me liquids. What I told you is that on lap 15 I had to vomit in here,” confessed the Frenchman, once again the protagonist of the team orders in the French garage.. Another veteran who admitted to feeling almost sick was Kevin Magnussen, fourteenth with Haas.

Without going into more eschatological depths, the note of a certain humor was signed by Fernando Alonso. “The seat burns. Can you do something during the pit-stop? “Pour water on me or something like that,” the two-time world champion claimed on the radio.. “We have scored good points, but it has been a physically tough race. One of the hardest,” he concluded at the DAZN microphones..

Things went even worse for his teammate Lance Stroll, eleventh at the finish line after penalties.. The Canadian's ordeal began with 20 laps remaining, and he even revealed that he was “fainting in the car”. In fact, as soon as he got off the AMR-23 he went to an ambulance to be treated..

“We have lost a few points”

Aston Martin's ticket was once again saved by Alonso, despite a rare error that cost him the position against Leclerc. “We let a few points escape, because without the track start we might have held on to fifth place.”. I think that later we lost some piece of the fund,” conceded the man from Oviedo, without blushing to describe his failure as “expensive.”.

After the pertinent investigation, the stewards punished the two-time world champion with a reprimand, his first of the season, for returning to the track in an unsafe manner.. Despite everything, Alonso reduced the difference with Lewis Hamilton to 11 points, with whom he is fighting for third place in the World Cup..