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Daytona 24 Hours: Alonso 'scared' by loss of brakes at top speed

Fernando Alonso has admitted he was "scared" by the mechanical problem that caused him to lose brakes at top speed during the Daytona 24 Hours

The two-time Formula 1 world champion, making his competitive sportscar debut, finished 38th alongside Lando Norris and Phil Hanson after a problem-hit race.

He said that while he had a "positive feeling" about his first experience of racing at Daytona, the braking issue had left him "scared a little bit, no doubt".

He said: "You arrive at the first corner - it happened two times at the first corner - and you're at 300-310kph [186-192mph], then you hit the brakes and there are no brakes.

"Luckily at this track you have a shortcut. At night you don't see clearly the tyre wall and where is the escape road.

"So, that was even more scary!

"You try to bring the car back to the garage because in an endurance race this can happen and the mechanics will sort the problem."

The car was eventually retired with a recurrence of the brake problem, despite a master cylinder change.

Alonso said he was encouraged by how much faster the Ligier had been in the race than in testing or qualifying.

He said: "It was a very nice experience, the whole event - the test, the quali, the restarts, the stints, the fatigue at night, the transition from night to day... It was very nice being on track at that time.

"I really enjoyed the traffic management, the car itself.

"Maybe the nicest thing was how competitive we felt.

"We entered the race with no high hopes because we were never competitive and suddenly we picked up the pace and everyone was smiling in the garage.

"Into the night it was a very good part of the race. The car felt quite competitive."

Alonso described it as a "surprise" and reckoned the team was "probably in the fastest three cars on track when we were running".

"It was a surprise because we were not very competitive in practice three weeks ago, and we were not competitive this week in pure laptime pace.

"In quali we were 13th and 15th but then in the race this changed and we were

"[It was] a bit unlucky, even more for our sister car because it was in the podium [positions].

"We could be there; we were even one lap ahead of them in that moment [when the #23 suffered clutch troubles] so I think we lost an opportunity here."

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