Photo Credit: Aston Martin F1 team
With an excellent start to the season for Fernando Alonso after his switch to Aston Martin, the Spaniard’s new team have struggled for pace in recent races. This poor pace has been exasperated by the heavily upgraded McLaren and indeed a resurgent Mercedes.
Currently McLaren are 97 points behind Aston Martin in the Constructors Championship, but in the last two races the Woking-based team have outscored Aston Martin by 24 and 25 points at Silverstone and the Hungaroring respectively. If this trend was to continue, McLaren will be a big threat to Aston Martin’s current 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship.
On Thursday during media day for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, Alonso was asked if he feels McLaren are a danger to them in the Constructors’ Championship. His response was very matter-of-fact and let the current results do the talking.
“Yeah. If they score those points in every race, mathematically I think they will finish in front.”
When pressed if Alonso predicts this will happen, the double World Champion spoke in calculated fashion and acknowledges that his team have lost performance.
“I didn’t predict anything, and I think the team doesn’t predict anything. We just go racing every Sunday in the best way we can.
“Obviously we lost performance in the last few events, we are a little bit slower, and we are trying to understand that. I think this was more or less expected.”
In a positive spin, Alonso spoke of how the championship is long and it’s up to the team to improve their performance.
“I said already in Bahrain and Saudi that more difficult times and obstacles will come during the championship in 22 races, and I think we are in one of those moments. It’s not a surprise. It’s up to us to overcome those difficulties, and the way you approach these difficulties.”
The two-time World Champion praised the Silverstone-based team for their efforts in trying to solve their pace issues and credited other squads for the gains they’ve made.
“I think we are approaching in the best way possible, in a very humble way, trying to understand the issues, trying to understand the performance of the car, accepting that some of the others teams are doing a good job.
“But over 22 races we will see at the end of the year where we are.”
