The true extent of the damage Fernando Alonso sustained to his Aston Martin Formula 1 car at the United States Grand Prix has been revealed.
Alonso picked up significant damage to the floor of his AMR26 during contact with Alex Albon’s Williams on the opening lap of Sunday’s race in Austin.
Two-time world champion Alonso lined up 12th on the grid but lost one place at the start, before Albon challenged the Aston Martin driver at Turn 11.
The pair came to blows, with Albon’s front-right wheel smashing into the bargeboard and floor edge on the left-hand side of Alonso’s car.
Alonso and Albon came to blows on the first lap
Alonso lost four positions in the melee and could only finish 16th.
After the race, Alonso blasted the “very low quality” of drivers towards the back of the F1 grid and claimed the damage he suffered ruined his hopes of a points finish.
"That was the biggest damage," Alonso said. "I think we lost half a second or more [per lap]. The car is destroyed, I saw it in parc ferme. Half of the floor is not there. I don't know how we kept on going and how we were semi-competitive.
"I imagine if the car was in one piece, probably today the points were a strong possibility because we were running P12 with half a car. I lost even further pieces of the floor. I couldn't turn. So we stopped. I thought about retiring the car. I was ready to switch it off.
"But then they put a new front wing and I went out again. Obviously the car was turning ok to the right and not ok to the left for the last 15 laps of the race. But we wanted to finish and collect a little bit more data.
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"When you start at the back, there is this risk always. I think the quality of the drivers in the low third of the grid is very low. As we saw today with Alex. So I think we need to improve the car and start a little bit higher up."
Aston Martin ambassador and former F1 driver Pedo de la Rosa shared images of the damage to Alonso’s car after the race.
He described Alonso’s pace as “surprising” despite “missing half the floor, deflectors, and several bargeboard” elements.
The incident was not investigated by the F1 stewards at COTA.
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