The word pointless can describe Aston Martin’s weekend, with or without the hyphen.
After Lance Stroll’s shunt in qualifying left him out of the race, Fernando Alonso finished last of the remaining drivers, 15th after George Russell hit the wall on the last lap of the Singapore Grand Prix. This was an especially tough weekend to swallow for Aston Martin due to Red Bull’s lack of pace. With no Red Bull in the podium places, the field was wide open for anyone else to win, especially Alonso, whose 33rd career victory seemed possible when arriving at the Marina Bay Circuit this past weekend.
Photo credit: Aston Martin Cognizant Aramco Formula One Team
Alonso knew the pressure that was placed on him this weekend to have a good showing after a weekend in Monza when the car had no pace. A circuit like Singapore’s is supposed to be more suited for the AMR23, Alonso knew that he should have come away with something, preferably silverware. Coming away with no points is especially disappointing.
“I think we all expected a strong weekend in Singapore, it was not the case,” Alonso said.
To make things worse, Alonso had a 5-second penalty which later turned into a horrible pitstop for the team, leading to a total of a 25-second stop. All in all, Aston Martin and Alonso need to rebound from this weekend.
Photo Credit: Aston Martin Cognizant Aramco Formula One Team
“We didn’t have the pace that we were hoping for. Too many things [went wrong]: a mistake going into the pit lane, a sloppy stop, traffic all in one race. So a race to forget.”
At one point, Alonso said the car was undriveable and described how they had high tyre degradation plus no grip from the rear of the car.
“We need to look at it because the car was very difficult to drive, very little rear end from the car,” he said.
“We killed the tyres very quickly after the pit stop, so it was a tough race. We need to look at the details, obviously we don’t have the answers yet but we need to get better for Japan.”
With seven races remaining, Alonso is now P4 in the Drivers’ Championship, 10 points behind Lewis Hamilton. And McLaren continue to close in the Constructors’ Championship, too.
