Fernando
Alonso will not take part in qualifying in Monaco this
afternoon after the damage caused to his car during the
third and final free practice session this morning proved
too much to repair and the Ferrari team is now building up a
new car for tomorrow. The damage to his car, following the
accident early in the session "is not repairable," announced
Ferrari, "and therefore the chassis has to be changed; a job
that requires at least four hours to complete.
Alonso was
fastest in both the opening free practice sessions which
took place on Thursday as the Spaniard set the pace in Monte
Carlo ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session. Alonso
lost control of his car at Massenet in FP3 this morning,
rubbing the right hand side of the car into the guardrails.
He told the BBC afterwards that it was driver error and that
he just "lost the car". The team faced a frantic two hours
after the session finished, especially as it was immediately
suspected the gearbox might have been damaged, to get the
car rebuilt for the crucial qualifying sessions which starts
at 14.00. However on closer examination the mechanics
decided that the chassis couldn't be repaired and Alonso is
set to start from the back of the grid tomorrow.
In the
morning, Ferrari's potential on the streets of Monte Carlo
this year was shown by Alonso's team mate Felipe Massa, who
finished second fastest, just a few thousandths of a second
slower than the Renault of Robert Kubica: now all the team’s
hopes for a good showing rest on the Brazilian’s shoulders.
As always on this narrow street circuit, traffic had a major
impact on the third free practice session for the Monaco
Grand Prix. While fastest time in the final session went to
Kubica (1.14.806) who was followed by Massa (1.14.852),
third went to the Red Bull of Mark Webber (1.14.945), the
Australian winner of the last round of the F1 World
Championship, the Spanish Grand Prix, just six days ago.
Ferrari's Brazilian driver used soft tyres for his first two
runs and hard for the last of his three and he did a good
job of making the most of the few laps that were traffic
free while Alonso was classified sixteenth (1.16.266) as he
crashed into the barriers after just six laps.