At the start of the year, Aston Martin looked confident to keep up with the top teams and certainly be ‘the best of the rest’, right now it’s more than clear that their fight is “just defending from the guys behind”. The team is currently fifth in the Constructors’ Championship — the same positions they finished in last year — however, the gap to Mercedes in fourth is almost two hundred points, while RB slowly treads on their heels in sixth.
“Obviously, a very different position to last year this time,” Fernando Alonso noted, pointing to the fact that in 2023, Aston Martin came to the summer break in third in the overall standings and still looked quite competitive.
They had bagged six podiums in the first eight races. The Silverstone-based squad has not been on the rostrum once this year.
The driver continued his reflection of the first half of the 2024 Formula 1 season: “A little bit disappointed. You know, we cannot hide the fact that we are fighting today with Williams, [RB] and Alpine.
“Last year, we were looking maybe to the top four teams. Now, they are out of reach, and we are just defending from the guys behind.
“Even at the beginning of the year, in Qualifying especially, we were always top five, top six in the mix.
“So, definitely a lot of work to do for us in summer break and the second part of the year. So, you know, we will not give up, but we need to work,” the Spaniard concluded.
At the last race before the almost month-long break, Alonso finished P8 and brought home four points, while his teammate Lance Stroll came just short of any points in P11. Both Aston Martin cars decided to risk the one stop strategy, coming into the pits to change tyres only once and then going with them till the end — the same as the original race winner George Russell, who was later disqualified for having an underweight car.
“Well, we had the plans, always. Plan B, plan C, whatever. So we covered the one stop and the three stops,” Alonso said.
“At the end, I think it was just a casualty, we were P12, and we were just waiting for a safety car, maybe, to play in our hands. And then 11 laps to the end, we start considering — OK, the safety car is not coming, but maybe we go to the end.
“So it was just being very flexible, and lap by lap, you know, judging the conditions, and at the end it was the right call. But let’s say it was not planned, you know, just to go for one stop from the beginning,” the Aston Martin driver admitted.
Another thing that was not entirely planned was his only pit stop on Lap 13: “I think we reacted to Esteban [Ocon]’s stop. I mean, we were flexible. We didn’t have a lap to stop. So, yeah, it was more or less around that time.”
The one-stop strategy turned out to be the preferred one, which might have caught some strategy teams by surprise given the fact everybody was afraid of a high tyre degradation ahead of the actual race.
“Good driving,” Alonso joked about the reason behind the degradation being easier than predicted.
“No, I mean, I think, especially with the new asphalts, you sometimes get a very low [degradation], or you get graining. You know, you can have the two things. And, you know, today was one of those days, maybe the temperature helped to be a little bit hotter on Sunday. We had a lot of graining on Friday, and we didn’t have any today.
“But as I said, I think no one could predict, even the last five laps, if the degradation was not linear and you have a big lift, you know, the strategy will not work. So, you know, it’s a little bit of luck sometimes when you take these decisions.”
The importance of track position looked to be more important on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps than in previous years there. We did not see that many on-track fights and battles, which could have been caused by several factors among which could be the weather, shorter DRS zone, differences in performance between the cars or perhaps just luck.
“It depends, I think,” the Spaniard thought about how crucial the track position really was. “It depends on the cars you are fighting for. In our case, it was crucial because the Williams and the Alpines, they were the two fastest cars, and if you fall behind, the race is over,” he added.
“So, yeah, we underestimated that a little bit. But at the end, our car was, thanks to the extra drag and downforce, maybe it was taking care of the tyres a little bit better and made it possible to do one stop. So, it was a trade-off, and I think it was the right call for us.”
In conclusion, Alonso’s weekend in Belgium was not bad at all. However, if Aston Martin wants to stay in front of teams like RB or Haas, it still has work to do, as the driver himself pinpointed.
In situations like this, sometimes the teams choose to go back to some old components and updates, but Alonso doesn’t think this is the case: “I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s anything planned.”
“So, it’s more for us understanding the weaknesses of the car, the part that we need to improve. But I think all the work will be done for 2025. I don’t expect any big jumps in 2024,” the Spanish two-time world champion admitted.
“I’m a driver. I mean, I would love to design the car, but I’m not able to do it,” Alonso commented.
