For the twelfth time this season, and the third since Formula One’s return after the summer break, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso added points to his and his team’s tallies in their respective championships.
While speaking following the Singapore Grand Prix race, in which he finished eighth, earning his team another four points, the Spaniard stated that he had done the best that he could give the pace of his AMR24, and stated that he believed he had exceeded the team’s expectations as they had expected to finish in either ninth or tenth position, due to their inability to more effectively compete against the top four teams – McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.
A key moment in the race came at the pit stops as Aston Martin undercut Nico Hülkenberg. It allowed Alonso to finish best of the rest behind seven drivers from the top four teams.
“Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, behind the top four teams, just in front of Checo. So normally it’s ninth or tenth available.
“Today, finishing eighth is a little better than our best dreams.”
While Alonso acknowledged that the team had earned “good points”, he highlighted that he had struggled in the race, as evident through his finishing one lap down and struggling with his pace throughout.
He described the car as difficult to drive throughout the weekend but admitted that the team had been lucky to achieve such a positive result.
“So yeah, again, good points but still one lap behind and not great pace. Difficult car to drive the whole weekend.
“So yeah, we’re just lucky we got points, but it was possible to be P15 and have the same feeling.”
When asked if he expected his team’s performance to drop in the coming races due to the return to normal race circuits, Alonso admitted that this was probable.
However, he stated that while the street circuits of Baku and Singapore had provided the team with improved opportunities to score points, the team needed to work towards raising the level of their performance at non-street tracks.
“Yeah, probably. Probably, I think the last street tracks, here and Baku did maybe give an opportunity but yeah, I think now we need to raise the level.”
The 43-year-old stated that he hoped the upgrades planned for the upcoming races would help to achieve this.
“We have some new parts coming in the next few races.
“Hopefully, they help [us] to come back to a more strong performance.”
Alonso was asked if he thought that there was anything more that he could have done to have produced a better performance. While the two-time world champion stated that he still had the potential to win races, it was not possible to achieve that potential with the AMR24 given its deficiencies compared to the better-performing cars.
He reiterated that his P8 finish had exceeded expectations, repeating that a P15 or P16 finish had been highly likely due to the difficulties with the car.
“I mean, I think we should be 15th and 16th. We are eighth, 2 seconds behind a Ferrari so I don’t know if I can do more.
“I can win the race, but not today.”
He also addressed his battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the early stages of the race. Due to Leclerc’s sole lap time in the third qualifying session being deleted due to a track limit violation, the Ferrari driver, who had been one of the favourites to win the Singapore GP, was forced to start from ninth on the grid, two places behind Alonso who started from seventh.
While Leclerc was able to get ahead of RB’s Yuki Tsunoda at the beginning of the race, he ended up stuck behind Fernando Alonso, who himself was stuck behind Haas’ Nico Hülkenberg for several laps. Despite having had DRS for most of his laps behind Alonso, Leclerc struggled to overtake for some time, costing him bundles of race time.
When asked about this battle, Alonso stated that his race had not been with Leclerc but rather with Hülkenberg, and keeping Leclerc behind had been a consequence of his intention to follow and try to undercut Hülkenberg rather than to prevent Leclerc or his Ferrari teammate, Carlos Sainz, from getting ahead to compete with the front-runners.
He added that he believed that the Ferraris should have won the race as they, in his opinion, had been the fastest car throughout the weekend.
“I mean, I just tried to follow Nico and try to undercut him at one point.
“But yeah, the Ferraris were, I mean, they should have won this race probably.
“You know they were the fastest car this weekend so it was not my race.”
When asked if he believed that upgrades planned for the 2024 United States Grand Prix in Austin would define the tail end of the campaign, Alonso stated that he believed that they would as he did not expect the cars to change too significantly between the end of the 2024 championship and the beginning of 2025’s.
Due to this, he believed that it was important for his team to find the direction best to maximise their performance going forward.
“I think so. Obviously, [the] cars will not, I think, change too much from [the] last part of this year to next year.
“I don’t see any revolution on any of the teams so we need to make sure that we find the direction.”
Aston Martin currently sits fifth in the 2024 World Constructors’ Championship standings, more than 243 points behind fourth-place Mercedes. While the Silverstone-based team, will not be expecting to overcome this deficit across the season’s remaining six races, they will be hoping to keep ahead of rivals RB who sit 52 points behind in sixth place.
