Coming into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Aston Martin needed a confidence booster following a poor showing at the Italian Grand Prix where neither driver scored points, with Fernando Alonso only managing 11th, while Lance Stroll finished 19th.
In Azerbaijan, Alonso’s side of the garage bounced back and scored a strong sixth-place finish thanks to a flexible strategy and a rather “opportunistic Sunday” with a late drama that allowed the Spaniard to climb two places from eighth.
Speaking after the race, Alonso was pleased with the results because the team initially had ninth and tenth in sight but the race turned out to be better for Alonso with a sixth-place finish.
He beat the Williams cars, and the 32-time race winner was there to take full advantage of the crash between Carlos Sainz and Sergio Pérez.
“Yeah, definitely quite happy. Obviously, on a normal weekend, only ninth and tenth are available for the midfield teams and today, thanks to some action in front of us, sixth was available and we were there to take it.
“So yeah, opportunistic Sunday for us, a lot of points, so happy for the team.”
The Silverstone-based team had flexible strategies for the race which meant either a one or two-stop strategy was possible. Aston Martin ultimately decided with the former after observing and mirroring the strategies of their rivals.
“We were flexible today, one or two stops still working for us, so we followed more or less the trend, and whatever the people around us were doing, we copied and mirrored the strategy and it was a good one at the end.
“We were able to maintain the position with Franco [Colapinto], Alex [Albon], and Nico [Hülkenberg] at one point, so yeah, tough race. Obviously, no time to relax, but in a way, well executed, [with] good pit stops good strategy, [and] good tyre deg. So, [we] maybe not [be] super paced this weekend, but we’re still executing the race well enough to score a lot of points, so happy for the team”
Late in the race, the Williams of Alexander Albon was close behind after deciding to pull an alternate one-stopper after having his race slightly compromised since he needed to overtake Colapinto and Hülkenberg.
Alonso says he was giving it everything throughout the 51-lap contest.
“There’s not much to calculate in a way when you’re in the middle of the race, he’s pushing the maximum, I’m pushing the maximum, trying to open a little bit of a gap. I think his strategy was compromised a little bit in the way that he had to overtake Franco and Nico.
“So, those first laps on the medium tyres, if you are fighting hard as he had to do, it’s the bad thing to introduce the tyres. So, that was probably my safety net, to have Nico and Franco.
“But yeah, they were fast this weekend and they were two against one, as Alex said yesterday, but one was enough.”
Despite being happy with the low downforce setup, it resulted in higher tyre degradation than the team’s projection, but the AMR24’s top speed makes up for it in the streets of Baku.
The two-time F1 World Champion also praised the whole grid for the precision in their driving on such a tricky circuit.
“Yeah, I think we had more deg than we anticipated and that we would love to, but yeah, the top speed was definitely a help today.
“Some moments that they were close behind, I saw in the straight they were not even catching with the DRS, so I was a little bit more relaxed than other races. I think it’s very similar to Monza.
“I think the level of risk and precision that you have to apply in a race like today is outstanding, let’s say, for everybody. You know, all 20 drivers, I think, with the low level of grip, I think we were driving close to 100% every lap, so it was very impressive that no safety car, no accident happened in the race.
“It was not different for us, obviously Monza, P11, not really any prize from that race and he had a lot of points, so one compensated the other and this is very typical in Formula 1.”
The 43-year-old concluded with his thoughts on rivals Williams and Haas’ strong pace across recent weekends and his team’s ambition to cement their spot as the fifth-fastest team on the grid.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly also outpaced the Astons at Zandvoort.
“Yeah, I think Williams and Haas, generally they’ve been quicker the last three events.
“I would say. Kevin [Magnussen], in Monza, was outstandingly quick and fast, even with a 10-second penalty finishing in front of us.
“So, there are a couple of races that we fall behind, and we want to revert this and we want to become the fifth-fastest team as soon as possible.”
