The United States Grand Prix revealed the challenges Aston Martin face in trying to close the gap to the top of the midfield, nevermind the sizeable deficit to the top four teams.
In Austin, Fernando Alonso managed to finish in P13, extracting everything he could from the AMR24 despite the car’s limitations. He qualified a brilliant P8, beating faster car in the process
Reflecting on his performance, the two-time world champion was realistic as he went backwards, claiming: “I think it has been a difficult weekend for us, no secrets on that.
“We’ve been a little bit uncompetitive on the Sprint race, uncompetitive today. So we need to get better for Mexico. So lots of things to analyse in the next few days. We have another opportunity in one week’s time.”
Discussing the race strategy, Alonso noted that despite predictions of a two-stop race, on reflection, the one-stop seemed to be the way to go.
“It was really the first very long run with high fuel for everybody today.
“I think obviously the Sprint gives you a little bit of an idea, but it’s only with one third of the fuel tank and a different pace.
“Today we were surprised about the low deg and also the safety car at the beginning. I think it helped the tyre in the first stint. One-stop was the preferred option today for everybody.”
Despite this strategy talk, Alonso also noted that the pace of the car remains the most important part of the race weekend, and the most important thing for the team to fix, “For us it’s more about the pace of the car.”
Particularly when starting the race in an “unrealistically” high position following a strange end to the qualifying session as George Russell crashed out, Alonso claimed that, “We started P8, we knew that P8 was not our position… we fell back to P13, P14 quite quickly.”
Speaking about the controversial end to the US GP, where the stewards handed Lando Norris a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage in his battle with Max Verstappen, to McLaren’s dismay, Alonso claimed that it’s best for the stewards to make decisions quickly.
“Better to do it fast, because sometimes the podium celebration is with the wrong guy. Maybe it’s a good thing.”
Alonso found himself in his own controversy over the weekend following Liam Lawson’s defensive driving during the Sprint.
The RB driver made a move on the inside of turn 11 that caused Alonso to leave the track. Whilst trying to get his place back in the following sequence, both the Spaniard and Kiwi ended up losing their positions to Esteban Ocon.
Despite images of the two sharing heated words following the season, Alonso claims that there is, “Nothing to say, as I said. Everyone is racing differently. I think yesterday there were a couple of occasions that my opinion was too aggressive and his opinion wasn’t.
“This is motorsport.”
Stroll ended the race outside the points in P15, battling with a car that never seemed to come alive for him all weekend.
The Canadian claimed that, despite him going off on to the grass at turn 9 on the restart, he doesn’t think that “we would have stayed on track there, it wouldn’t have changed the result of the race.
“We would have finished in the same position, because of the others, the Williams and, yeah, the other cars are much quicker today.”
With regards to the car, Stroll noted that “nothing much is going to change for now until Mexico, so, yeah, it is what it is for the moment.”
