The one in Qatar was not just any podium for Fernando Alonso. It is one of those that one pulls out of the sleeve with a car obviously inferior to the one that elevates to a different status pulling a repertoire of resources worthy of a movie script.

Already on Saturday he began to see that the Alpine was there to give himself a joy, in the form of a worthy Q3, but he has not had 300 races in F1 for nothing, or to settle, and he took advantage of Hamilton's slipstream to climb to an almost unprecedented fifth place this season. Only in Turkey had he done it.

The other point was the end of Q3, with Gasly's spectacular puncture, stopped in the middle of the straight, the stewards' doubts, the yellow flag that caught Bottas, the double yellow flag that caught Verstappen, and while Fernando "braking at the finish line just in case, so they wouldn't catch me". He, well, he had a prize, not being sanctioned and taking another two places, up to third, with a car to start ninth in pure speed in one lap. Where Ocon came out, come on.

Lo and behold, Alonso looks third on the grid, 8 meters behind Hamilton, with Gasly and his Alpha Tauri in the front row. There was no doubt in the least that he had to hunt down the Frenchman if he wanted to pull off a surprise, get him off his back. The exit is already part of history, the bolt to Verstappen, who raised land surprised, and in the same turn, the outside to the French, jerking, who did not even see him coming. Another trick.

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— Rich-Bivins Thu Jan 28 18:10:24 +0000 2010

But with everything, Bottas was faster and Checo was faster, with a Mercedes and a Red Bull, in fact the Mexican clearly passed him, but the first one exploded the hard ones for exceeding 30 laps and the second one made an extra stop at stroke. Fernando returned to the catalog to take care of his first game of soft until doubt (lap 23) and let's not say with the hard ones, with which he did 34 made a bundle of nerves. He had no choice but to take courage, save a stop and risk it if he wanted the podium.

Bottas, Russell, Norris and Latifi had all suffered punctures in their left front tyres, probably the product of high wear combined with the high-speed impact of Losail's curbs, all of them very high. "I was taking care of them and I was saving half a second per lap, in the last 15 laps of the race. I was saving in the last sector, because they told me not to push for fear of the tire exploding," said Fernando, who was already doubting until of the silences, which he imagined funeral, of the team radio.

"Are we there or not, are we here or not? Is Checo coming or not?" He insisted almost one lap after another, so attentive to the race, above his own problems, that he asked for accurate help. "Tell Esteban to defend like a lion," he blurted out on the radio with a dozen turns to go. If Ocon stopped him for a lap, he could give him the podium, eating the Mexican more than a second per lap in the middle of a comeback.

He slowed him down a few corners, which were enough until luck came to give him a brief relief, it was his turn, in the form of a virtual safety car: slower, less wear, no comeback behind. The podium of the rogue who does not miss an opportunity and who finishes on goal if a washing machine is centered on him, like yesterday. From a 40-year-old scoundrel who took out a law podium: he was only surpassed by the contenders for the title.