Nobody at Aston Martin or in the world of Formula 1 imagined such a disappointing start to the season for Fernando Alonso‘s team, especially for the Asturian driver, who has abandoned twice in the first two races of the season, once through his own mistake and once due to reliability problems with the brakes of the AMR25.
Aston Martin with problems
The sixth place achieved by Lance Stroll in Australia is the only positive for Aston Martin so far this season, valuable points for a forgettable start. The British team is aware that this position was the result of the weather conditions during the Melbourne race, and the Canadian’s merit is not diminished, but they are aware that, under normal circumstances, none of this would have been possible.
The main concern is for Fernando Alonso. The team’s star and veteran driver has been the big loser at the start for Aston Martin, with two retirements in both the Australian and Chinese Grands Prix. It is true that on the first day it was due to a mistake on his part, when everything seemed to indicate that he would get into the points, but on the second day he only made it to the first corner due to brake problems in the AMR25. Yes, it is bad luck that there have been two failures in the first two races, but Alonso warns: there will be more races with a zero.
Alonso predicts races without points
Fernando Alonso confirms that it will be common to end weekends without scoring any points. This does not mean that there will be retirements, simply that it will not be possible to reach the top 10. The Aston Martin is a better car than last year, but so are other teams fighting for midfield positions that, for the moment, are ahead of Aston Martin. Racing Bulls and Williams are “clearly ahead”, and it remains to be seen if Haas is too, having scored 14 points at the start of the season.
It’s time to improve in all aspects, because if he doesn’t, the Asturian driver sees it as difficult to reach the top 10. “Zeros may be common this year…”. However, he insists on the enormous equality of this season and the enormous work to improve the results: “We have improved since Australia”. “The good thing is that the team that brings two or three tenths of an improvement is not going to win two or three places. It will win eight. We hope to continue improving at every Grand Prix”.
Holding on to the improvements made by Aston Martin
Aston Martin is still working to extract a few tenths of a second with the AMR25 while waiting for the first improvements for the team. These are not expected until the Imola GP, which takes place in Italy on May 18th, and they hope that their package will be better than what other teams on the grid can bring. Fernando Alonso is grasping at straws, as he believes Aston Martin has an advantage with Adrian Newey: although the engineer’s mind is focused on the AMR26, he has one eye on this season’s car, and his knowledge could be key to helping make the improvements efficient for the current season.
Aston Martin needs to step up, and so does Fernando Alonso. The British team is investing large amounts of money in getting the most out of the car, but so far they are unable to get it out of the lower areas of the classification. There is still a long season ahead, no less than 22 more races, and it is up to them to ensure it does not become a nightmare until next year. We will see if they are capable of gaining those tenths to be able to make a leap into the middle zone of the F1 grid.