Fernando Alonso highlights big Ferrari missed opportunity after running into trouble

Fernando Alonso is convinced that Ferrari “should have won” the Singapore Grand Prix, with the SF-24 car faster than Lando Norris and McLaren at Marina Bay last weekend.

McLaren claimed a fourth victory in six races in Singapore as Norris dominated from pole position, extending the team’s lead over reigning champions Red Bull in the Constructors’ standings to 41 points with six rounds of the F1 2024 season remaining.

Fernando Alonso: Ferrari, not McLaren, ‘should have won’ Singapore GP

Norris’s margin of victory at Marina Bay fell just 1.9 seconds short of his triumph in the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, where he won by 22.8 seconds in the most dominant performance by any driver all season.

Norris’s routine win came after the expected challenge from McLaren’s main rivals failed to materialise with Ferrari, polesitters at the previous two races in Italy and Azerbaijan courtesy of Charles Leclerc, running into trouble in qualifying in Singapore.

Leclerc could only manage ninth on the grid after seeing his final lap of Q3 deleted, with team-mate Carlos Sainz starting 10th after crashing in the final part of qualifying.

Fernando Alonso vs Lance Stroll at Aston Martin: F1 2024 head-to-head battles

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Both drivers mounted a recovery on race day as Leclerc and Sainz finished fifth and seventh respectively in a blow to Ferrari’s own hopes of winning the Constructors’ Championship, with the Scuderia now trailing McLaren by 75 points.

Having claimed his best result sine June’s Canadian Grand Prix with sixth in Baku, Alonso produced another defiant drive to collect eighth place in Singapore, finishing two seconds behind Sainz at the chequered flag.

Speaking after the race, Alonso claimed that he extracted the maximum from the Aston Martin to finish so close to a Ferrari at Marina Bay.

Asked if eighth was the best result available, he said: “Absolutely.

“Behind the top-four teams, just in front of Checo [Sergio Perez] so normally it’s ninth and 10th available.

“Today, finishing eighth is better than our best dreams.

“Good points, but still one lap behind and not great pace. Difficult car to drive the whole weekend, so we are just lucky we got points, but it was possible to be P15 and have the same feeling.”

Pressed on whether he could have achieved more, he responded: “I think we should be 15th and 16th.

“We are eighth, two seconds behind the Ferrari, so I don’t know if I can do more? I can win the race, but not today.

“The Ferraris should have won this race, probably. They were the fastest car this weekend.”

Having claimed a total of eight podium finishes across his first year with Aston Martin in F1 2023, Alonso has endured a troubled second season with the Silverstone-based outfit, with his fifth-place finish at the second round in Saudi Arabia still his best result of F1 2024.

With Aston Martin struggling again with in-season upgrades, Alonso has stressed the need for the team “to raise the level” and establish a clear development path for F1 2025, with most teams expected to retain their current concepts in the final year of the existing regulations.

Asked if his season will get harder from now as the calendar moves to more conventional circuits, he added: “Probably.

“I think the last street tracks, here and Baku, did maybe give an opportunity, but I think now we need to raise the level.

“We have some new parts coming in the next few races. Hopefully they help us to come back to a more strong performance.

“I think the cars will not change too much from the last part of this year to next year. I don’t see any revolution for any of the teams, so we need to make sure that we find the direction.”

Read next: Logan Sargeant to IndyCar? The 5 teams most likely to sign the F1 driver