Head praises Alonso!

By role
June 18 2003

Williams F1 Technical Director, Patrock Head, recently praised Alonso for his race at Canada in a recent interview in Autosport Online. Alonso finished 4th at the Canadian GP less than 2 seconds behind race winner Michael Schumacher.

Patrick Head thought that Alonso had indeed done a great race:

"A great race from Alonso, I thought," He said. "Slightly odd timing of the last pitstop maybe, but still a great drive. He was relatively slow in the first 20 laps [due to a graining problem on the softer Michelin tyre], then very strong for the next five laps up to his late first pit stop. From then on, in the second and third stints, he was very strong and clawed it back. I think he's going to have a good future in Formula 1."

Head was surprised on the pace of the Renault though he thinks it was due to their choice of tyres as well as the extra time they had in running on the dry:

"An awful amount of nonsense is talked about their engine – it's within 30 or 40bhp of the other engines at the front." Head said. "And remember, they got two hours running in the dry, which allowed them to run on the softer tyre. We did not risk that based on somebody else's data, so if any of the other teams had done the same they would have been half a second better on every lap of the race. "

Renault had 2 extra hours of running on Friday thanks to them signing the Heathrow Agreement that limits Renault's in-between races testing.