Fernando Alonso believes that the penalty he received for a false start at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ultimately did not affect the outcome of his race, with the Spaniard stating that Aston Martin were \u201cvery, very slow\u201d on a day that he finished outside of the points.<\/p>\n
After just missing out on the top-10 shootout in Saturday\u2019s Qualifying, Alonso<\/a> lined up in P11 on the grid for Sunday\u2019s race \u2013 putting him directly behind McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Oscar Piastri<\/a> in P9, the Australian having crashed out during Q3.<\/p>\n Piastri faced further troubles when he moved too early at the start, leading to his car going into anti-stall. The championship leader \u2013 who hit the wall later on Lap 1<\/a>, putting him out of the race \u2013 was handed a five-second time penalty for the false start.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Alonso reacted to Piastri\u2019s movement off the line ahead of him and was given the same penalty, which he later served at his pit stop. This dropped the two-time World Champion down the order before he ultimately crossed the line in P15.<\/p>\n Reflecting on the start incident as well as his race as a whole in Baku, Alonso explained: \u201cI reacted to Oscar\u2019s movement and obviously we both went before the lights unfortunately.<\/p>\n \u201cI think probably it didn\u2019t change much on the race outcome because we were very, very slow today and we need to improve for the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of the learnings that he and the team can take from what was a tough weekend in Azerbaijan, Alonso admitted that there are still some other circuits coming up during the rest of the season that he anticipates will be challenging for the AMR25.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we have a car that has certain characteristics, not the ones of Monza, not the ones of Baku, and I think not the ones of Vegas or Mexico, so I expect in Vegas and Mexico to be at the back of the grid,\u201d the 44-year-old said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are another four races that hopefully we take opportunities [in] and we score a few points.\u201d<\/p>\n Aston Martin<\/a> slipped from P6 to P7 in the Teams\u2019 Championship<\/a> following the race in Baku, with Alonso\u2019s team mate Lance Stroll<\/a> also unable to score points as he ended the event down in 17th place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just stayed out for a long time hoping for a Safety Car on the first stint and then it never came, so that was kind of the end of our race,\u201d the Canadian summarised afterwards.<\/p>\n