Clever Fernando Alonso trick spotted with onboard footage under scrutiny

Fernando Alonso topped the timing sheets in Free Practice 1 ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix and managed to keep his Aston Martin machine firmly within the top five in a red flag-studded FP2.

While the Spaniard has exhibited strong pace at high-downforce tracks throughout the summer, former champion Jenson Button also pointed out that Alonso is boasting a much stronger steering angle in his AMR25 this weekend.

Button identifies Fernando Alonso steering angle trick

Topping the timing sheets in the first practice session of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend was none other than Formula 1’s most storied veteran, Fernando Alonso.

And while he did drop down the running order in FP2, the pace of Aston Martin’s AMR25 is clearly no fluke, with Alonso sitting fourth in that session.

High-downforce circuits like Singapore have really allowed Alonso and his Aston Martin team to show their skillset throughout the season, so that performance isn’t necessarily a major surprise.

But could part of that pace come down to a unique steering rack angle? That’s something that Sky F1 pundit Jenson Button noticed straight away.

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After confessing that it’s “lovely to see” the 44-year-old Alonso “pushing the limits” of both body and machine, Button identified something different in the driver’s AMR25 that could be contributing to his pace.

“It looks like he’s got a different ratio steering rack. He’s got a lot of steering angle in the car,” Button noted.

“You might do that around a place like this, because you don’t want the minimum steering angles making a big difference to the balance, so everything’s a little bit calmer.

“He’s crossed arms in a lot of corners, but it seems to be working for him.”

In effect, the steering ratio is the degree to which a driver’s inputs on the steering wheel impact the turning angle of the tyres.

A higher steering ratio, like the one Alonso is boasting this weekend, means the driver must feed more input into his steering wheel in order to make the car turn — and in this case, it seems that it’s to such an extent that Alonso is crossing one arm over another as he navigates his AMR25 around the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

Higher steering ratios reduce the physical effort it takes to turn a steering wheel, but it requires greater driver input to achieve the degree of turn-in required.

In other words, it’s physically easier to turn the steering wheel, but you’ll have to turn that steering wheel more completely, to a much higher degree.

As Button points out, there can be concerns about a driver getting too “crossed up,” or stacking one arm over the other and in the process reducing the driver’s ability to adopt the steering wheel angle necessary to accomplishing the correct turning radius.

But a driver of Alonso’s experience likely understands his limitations on that front.

Singapore is one of the most fatiguing tracks on the contemporary F1 calendar.

The narrow, high-speed nature of the street circuit itself is a challenge, while high temperatures and high humidity introduce a major physical strain on the drivers behind the wheel.

Trying to navigate all those variables is also mentally taxing. All told, it’s far easier to grow exhausted at a place like Singapore than it is elsewhere.

Alonso’s higher steering ratio, then, is likely providing his body with some much needed respite.

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