Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso was left confused by his spin during second practice for the Japanese Grand Prix and suggested it may have been caused by a gust of wind.
The Aston Martin driver lost control at the entry to Suzuka's Turn 8 and spun across the gravel resulting in his AMR25 becoming beached, with FP2's second red-flag period subsequently happening.
Alonso was the second driver to spin off during the session after Alpine rookie Jack Doohan crashed at Turn 1 having not closed his DRS heading into the high-speed bend.
The Spaniard said: "I need to review it. I lost the car in a weird way, it’s very windy and very gusty out there, and the car is a little bit critical. But yeah, I don't know if I put a tyre on the grass or something.”
That appears to be exactly what happened. This section of the lap is more technically challenging than it looks since the cars must shed speed at the last of the ‘S’ corners, then build it up again through the constant-radius Nippon curve that follows.
The first Degner Curve, Turn 8, is more open than the second, so the drivers look to carry as much speed through there as possible.
To do this, drivers naturally move to the left-hand extremities of the track to open out the right-hander. Analysis of the onboard footage clearly shows Alonso straying over the white line on the approach, with his left-front wheel on the grass as he passes the 50-metre board.
The left-front was fully on the grass when he began to steer right. This unsettled the car’s rear end, which Alonso tried to correct by jinking the wheel back to the left before steering right again.
But, by this point, the AMR25 was on a trajectory that caused it to miss the apex of the corner and, despite Alonso applying more right-hand steering lock, momentum carried the car onto the kerbs. From there, he was a passenger.
Whether there was a gust of wind at the critical moment only the telemetry is likely to show, but all the drivers complained about having a headwind through the ‘S’ curves during practice. On the run into the Degners, the wind would have been blowing from right to left, and slightly to the rear of the car.
Despite this setback, Alonso remained optimistic for the rest of the Japanese weekend.
“I think we’re slightly more competitive than in China [he retired having started 13th],” he said. “So hopefully Q3 is possible tomorrow.”
