• British Grand Prix - FP2

Aquaplaning causes Alonso crash

ESPN Staff
July 6, 2012 « Standings don't lie - Webber | Tyres not the reason for lack of running - Pirelli »
Fernando Alonso lost his front wing right at the very end of Friday's running © Sutton Images
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Fernando Alonso said that his Ferrari aquaplaned off the track at the end of FP2 as he lost his front wing against the barriers.

Though the conditions really called for full wet tyres, Alonso was running on intermediates at the very end of the session when he slid off the track exiting Stowe. He put the incident down to standing water on the track and said that he hoped the team would be able to fix his broken front wing.

"The off track moment towards the end? The car was aquaplaning and it got away from me," Alonso said. "A shame about the front wing and now we must see if we can repair it."

Alonso revealed that he was running on the intermediates because of the lack of wet tyres available throughout a race weekend.

"There's very little I can say this afternoon, or at least even less than usual for a Friday. We did very few laps because of the rain and the fact that, with the number of sets of rain tyres limited by the regulations, there was no sense in doing more running. Rather, it was better to save tyres, given that the forecast is definitely not encouraging, as it is meant to rain all weekend.

"In other circumstances, if the rest of the weekend was meant to be dry maybe, then we could have done more running, but in these conditions, as I said, that really wasn't the case. In the wet, the car seems okay, but it's practically impossible to say where we are compared to the others. Tomorrow morning, let's hope we can at least do a few laps in the dry so as to least have a rough idea of the behaviour of the Soft and Hard compounds that Pirelli has brought here."

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