"Classic FOM radio": Fernando Alonso dismisses agitated team radio messages during the 2023 F1 Japanese GP

Fernando Alonso dismissed a few of his agitated team radio messages during the 2023 F1 Japanese GP by claiming they were a bit out of context. The Spaniard had a bit of a struggling race as he jumped into the top six at the start with his soft tires. However, it all went a bit pear-shaped afterwards as Alonso was pitted very early in the race.

As a result, he got caught out by faster cars that he had undercut with his pitstop. This was when his first team radio aired where he told the team that he had been 'thrown to the lions' by pitting so early. The next one came when he was battling Esteban Ocon.

While he was trying to overtake his former Alpine teammate, Fernando Alonso told Aston Martin to try something different because he was losing out on the straights. While the team obliged and he got the jump on Ocon, he was questioned about the agitated team radio, to which the Spaniard said that it was just taken out of context. As quoted by Crash.net, he said,

"It’s the same, the classic thing, the classic FOM radio, completely out of context. I’m not sure exactly what other drivers can say when they are behind a car that is slower and on the straight they are pulling away even when you open the DRS."

He added,

“Maybe the other drivers say ‘I’m okay, I’m happy to be behind’, but I prefer to be motivated to overtake them on track. I was slower even with DRS open. I called for a different strategy. We stopped, we beat them, that’s the way we do it. We beat everyone on track even if the radio is the highlight.”

Fernando Alonso looking at the positive side after the race

After the race, Fernando Alonso preferred to look at the positive side where he felt that their pace was surprisingly good. Admitting that the strategy could have been better, the driver was happy with the comparative pace against the Mercedes cars. He said,

"I think the positive is that the pace of the car was surprisingly good. I didn’t expect to be as fast as Ferrari and Mercedes, to be honest. I think with a more optimized strategy maybe we could have finished sixth or seventh, and it didn’t look that way yesterday after qualifying. So the Sunday was very strong for us and we need to understand why.”

Fernando Alonso is, however, losing out in the championship standings to Lewis Hamilton in the battle for P3 as the Mercedes driver once again finished ahead of him.