Alonso fears a repeat of Spa should it rain heavily in F1’s Russian GP

Rain is forecast on Saturday and Sunday this weekend, with the worst of the weather expected to hit qualifying.

Wet weather affected second practice for the 2015 Russian Grand Prix when Alonso was driving for McLaren.

Due to the limited elevation changes at Sochi, Alonso is concerned if there is heavy rain, there will be a lot of standing water.

“I do remember and it was not great, I tell you the visibility was bad,” Alonso replied when asked about driving Sochi in the wet. “I think it’s a very flat track. There are no elevation changes here so the water stands quite a lot on track.

“I remember Turn 1 being quite difficult which is not a corner normally but it was a real corner in the wet. For Sunday, fingers crossed it’s not that wet or not raining too much because the visibility will be bad and we don’t want to see anything like Spa.”

Alonso continued his impressive run of form with an eighth top 10 finish in nine races at Monza.

The Spaniard is confident Alpine will fare better than it did last time out.

“We think that Monza was one of the worst for us in terms of layout and characteristics of our package,” Alonso said. “Here, it should be a step better. You never know because you need to feel comfortable with the car, the setup has to be in the window straight away on Friday.

“The weather looks a little bit unknown a bit at the moment or even quite wet on Saturday so it’ll be important to have a clean Friday because maybe that’s the only dry running you get. You never know but we have more confidence here than Monza, for sure.”