Fernando Alonso feels he was the reason for his poor qualifying position in Imola rather than an issue with his Alpine machine. The Spaniard failed to make Q3 and was outqualified by a teammate for the first time since Malaysia 2017, after Esteban Ocon put his Alpine car in ninth place. “I was not fast,” Alonso told RacingNews365.com and other select members of the press. “The car felt good, the balance was good, and every time I finished the lap, I was quite happy with how it felt. But it definitely was too slow to be higher on the classification. “It's going to be a tough race starting at the back. Imola is not well-known for overtaking opportunities, so you know that it is going to be a race to struggle a little bit at the back." Alpine brought a new aerodynamic package to Imola after a difficult season-opener. Alonso feels the upgrades have not worked even though teammate Ocon had his best session of the season so far. “I don't think [the changes] made a huge impact on the performance, to be honest," added Alonso. “If I was feeling the car differently in qualifying than in FP3, maybe I could understand that we did something in the wrong direction or something. "But the car felt good in qualifying and felt the same as FP3, so I guess it's more down to me. When you are talking about two or three-tenths making [up] five or six places, it is difficult to be 100% sure, but I guess I need to get better. “I need to understand better where is the limit of the car, maybe in difficult tracks. On demanding circuits like this one, you need to have a trust level in the car. These old-school tracks require some trust in the car and confidence to push at the limit while qualifying arrives. “Maybe I'm not into that level yet. I will try to improve for the next one.”
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