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Fernando Alonso, Alpine

The Saturday morning tricks that expose Alonso's true mindset

They were unnoticed by many, and eventually rendered futile due to a car problem that prevented him from starting the sprint race. But Fernando Alonso's tactics in second practice at the Austrian Grand Prix revealed that the Alpine driver is as sharp as he ever has been and wasting no opportunity to gain an advantage, which will play to his favour when his recent run of poor luck turns

The view from the Red Bull Ring media centre is one of the best of the Formula 1 season. It not only offers a great panorama of the pitlane, the track and the mountains beyond, but, if you get the right desk, it affords a brilliant view of the run out of the final corner too. It’s a great place to note the speed, lines and positioning of the cars through and from the exit of Turn 10, before they briefly disappear from view behind the roof edge of the one of the start/finish straight grandstands.

The benefit of that rhythm of cars ducking in and out of view in Saturday morning’s second free practice session last weekend actually acted as an alert to one car regularly doing something slightly different. They didn’t disappear from view as they were on a completely different line as they ran down past the pits so stayed in view throughout.

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