Aston Martin believe a heavy kerb strike caused the suspension failure which put Fernando Alonso out of the Italian Grand Prix.
The team passed on a warning to Lance Stroll in their remaining car after Alonso retired when his front-right suspension failed on lap 25.
“Lance, Fernando retired with a suspension problem, from running far too wide, turn 10 exit, out onto the gravel,” Stroll’s race engineer Gary Gannon warned him. “So just take care, turn 10 exit, don’t run too wide.”
The failure occured as Alonso ran wide at the exit of the high-speed Ascari sequence (turn 10). The car threw up a shower of sparks as Alonso crossed the kerb.
Alonso ran eighth before his pit stop, where he jumped ahead of rival Gabriel Bortoleto. The Sauber driver went on to finish eighth.
“This is unbelievable, mate, unbelievable,” said Alonso on his radio as he drove to the pits to retire. “How many points we lost today? Four, six?”
After the race Alonso said he did not think he had done anything differently in the race which might have contributed to the failure. “We were using the kerbs the same all weekend, so I think it’s bad luck that we ended up having to retire,” he said.
“It’s a shame to lose more points in the championship, as we were having a good weekend up to then.”
Alonso has retired from four grands prix this year. He crashed out of the opening racing at Melbourne. He retired early in the Chinese Grand Prix where he suffered a brake failure. In Monaco he was running sixth when a broken power unit put him out. Since then he had scored points in every race except Belgium until last weekend’s retirement.
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