Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso saw an early exit from the 2025 F1 Australian GP after crashing out of turn 6. Alonso was steadily running at P10 until the 43-year-old became one of six drivers who did not see the chequered flag on Sunday.
The Spaniard was one of many drivers who had spoken up about the issues at turn 6. Recent changes were made to the kerbs and gravel traps after many expressed their concerns. However, these changes came at a cost as gravel kept getting spit out on the track through the weekend.
“I need to review the incident, but it’s difficult to understand at the moment. I don’t think I was off track or putting the car on a different racing line than any other lap before, so I found a lot of gravel just there in that moment where I put the rear tyre, and I lost the car.”
Problems with the gravel trap
Alonso emphasised the gravel trap at turn 6 needs to be re-looked at for next year. The Spanish driver expressed his concerns over the potential danger imposed with the implementation of the new gravel traps.
While the kerb changes certainly helped avoid massive shunts seen in the previous two years, a new problem has arisen.
Nonetheless, the 32-time race winner and two-time F1 World Champion took responsibility for his accident.
“That turn 6 design probably is not the best, bringing gravel to the track and not away from the track, but it was the same for everybody.
“A mistake today and in five days we have another go.”
Similarly, Kimi Antonelli was one of many victims of the gravel trap and suffered from damage during Q1. This turn has previously taken out the likes of George Russell and Alex Albon in the past which left both with hefty damages, and this was not any different for Fernando Alonso in his Aston Martin.
“I think we had a lot of damaged cars. I think Antonelli in qualifying destroyed the floor there.
“We should never have a corner where the gravel goes into the track because that’s a danger for drivers, marshals, everyone, so that’s number one priority. I think turn 6 we’ll have to do a little bit of a tweak.”
Positives from the weekend but improvements moving forward required for Aston Martin F1 says Fernando Alonso
Despite the costly mistake, the Spanish driver was encouraged by the team’s weekend.
Alonso recalled the pace of their car prior to his crash as he kept Gasly right in his vision in the fight for P9. In qualifying, the car looked a Q3 contender in his hands until a mistake at turn 10 damaged his floor and could only finish P12 in Q2.
“I was in the mix, maybe a little bit faster than Gasly, but difficult to overtake when there is only one racing line which is dry and outside of that is wet.
“We kept Antonelli for a few laps behind, so there are some weaknesses that we need to tackle, but at the same time we found ourselves in the mix with all the other cars and if we do good weekends we can score good points.”
Acknowledging the flaws of the AMR25, the Spaniard explained the team’s efforts in experimenting with their set-ups with the same package they had brought to Bahrain. At the end of FP3, it did not look good.
However, a return to a Friday set-up transformed the car come qualifying.
“We’ve been in Bahrain and we kept experimenting here and we saw the difference between FP3 performance and qualifying performance yesterday.
“So it was the same car, same package, but one was very competitive, one was less. So there is a little bit of a set-up investigation that we need to keep on going.
“Next weekend obviously China is a sprint, so not much experimenting.”
With their sights forward to a Sprint weekend in China, the team will be hoping to have a better weekend on both sides of the garage after Lance Stroll’s P6.
