After taking his first front-row start in a decade, Fernando Alonso wants to lead the Canadian Grand Prix.
The 40-year-old qualified second behind Max Verstappen's Red Bull in the wet in Montreal for his best qualification result since taking pole in Germany
He wants to lead the race in the first lap. Attack the maximum allowed on turn one.
It will be nice to lead the race after that.
Verstappen said he was worried about the Alpine driver's reputation as a strong starter. Alonso usually makes up positions at the beginning of a race.
Verstappen said that Fernando is still very fast even though he is getting a little older. I have to be prepared because he starts very well.
Since Alonso came back to F1 last season, the two have developed a strong relationship.
"To be on the front row with Fernando, I used to look at F1 as a little kid, seeing Fernando being up there and winning his races and titles and putting it on pole." Sharing the front row is great.
Alonso, a two-time world champion with 32 victories who is considered as one of the greatest F1 drivers in history, downplayed the importance of returning to the front of the grid for the first time in a decade.
He said it doesn't mean a lot. I know what I can do." Sometimes I do a better job and other times I don't.
It feels good, but it doesn't mean anything to me. We have to do a good race tomorrow.
Alonso said that the top two teams were in a different league and that he would have to fight for victory.
Even though Verstappen's main title rival, Charles Leclerc, is 19th as a result of a grid, Verstappen is worried that he will lose out to the other cars.
Lewis Hamilton's best result of the year was fourth for Mercedes, a car that has been better than the Alpine for most of the year.
"Our realistic position is not in the top five so let's try to have a clean race, execute a good strategy, score as many points as possible but to think about winning is completely unrealistic," Alonso said.
The Spaniard set the fastest time in the dry on Friday.
He looked on course for a top-four grid slot in Australia in the third race of the season only for the car to develop a technical problem in qualification and cause Alonso to crash
The car was good immediately. Huge set-up changes were not made. We didn't experiment too much because the car felt great in the first practice and that gave us confidence.
I believe you need some rhythm into it. You use a lot of kerb here. There are a few things that are there for a long period of time.
For half of the grid it's either the first time they come here or the second time, because after the Pandemic it was not many races hosted here.
I've been racing here for 16 or 17 years and I always say that age and experience is always a good thing.
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