Fernando Alonso
There were many contenders for the coveted Top Dog award in Bahrain, which is testament to just how good a race in the sands of Sakhir it was. We could have picked any from Sergio Perez, Romain Grosjean, Paul Di Resta of Kimi Raikkonen, but we haven’t. In fact, we’ve gone for th man who finished 8th.
Now, it’s not like it was a routine 8th place for Fernando Alonso. He scrapped for the lead in the early stages and was one of the fastest cars out there, but thanks to a rear wing failure, and the resulting pit-stops to fix it, the Spaniard was down in 19th before one-third distance facing an afternoon without DRS.
It was hard to see what Ferrari were thinking in asking him to use the system one lap after fixing it. Probably just to confirm it was a complete failure we think – there would be nothing worse than spending a race not using it only to find after afterwards it was working perfectly fine.
Yet, he still brought it home in the points paying positions. It’s an impressive achievement considering there was no safety car, no large shunt of cars ahead of him, and no real help from his teammate (who was off having dramas of his own with shredding Pirelli tyres).
There’s been no hiding the fact that Alonso is fast becoming a Sett favourite thanks to his 12 months of phenomenal performances. Bahrain 2013 should be added to that list for good reason, and the Top Dog trophy is well and truly his.
