Source:REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
[Saba Sports News] According to motorsport.com, after retiring from the 2025 Italian Grand Prix due to suspension damage, Fernando Alonso dismissed the claim that “excessive use of curbs” caused the incident, stating that the real cause was a rare failure resulting from a flying piece of gravel hitting an exposed component. The Aston Martin team has now confirmed that targeted modifications have been made to the car to minimize the chances of a similar event recurring. When asked after the race if he was relieved to have found the cause, Alonso calmly responded, “Not exactly happy. The team told me the reason on Monday and Tuesday. I already knew it wasn’t due to the curbs – it was just suspension damage. It wasn’t a production or quality control defect but a case of a stone hitting an unprotected area. It was pure bad luck. There’s nothing we could have done. It’s just another lost point. I’d say it’s a one-in-ten-million probability. Hopefully, I’ll have to run ten million more races before it happens again.” Alonso also admitted that most of his points losses this year were due to bad luck: “These things can happen. In 2022, when I was with Alpine, the car was actually not bad, but I retired 12 times, always when I was running in P5 or P6. That year, I lost about 50 or 60 points. This year, we’ve already lost around 22 points. Ironically, when the car isn’t competitive and we’re slow, we always finish the race smoothly but don’t score points. Now, we’re not asking for good luck – we just hope for normal luck.” Ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Aston Martin confirmed to the media that they have reinforced critical areas to reduce the risk of damage from gravel impacts.