The season 2025 has not had the start that Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso had hoped for. The Spaniard has started with two retirements in the Australia and China events, something that had not happened since 2017 with McLaren. Although overall it is a bad start to the season, there is one person who has benefited from all this, Lance Stroll, who has been able to finish in the points in the two grands prix.
Stroll beats Fernando Alonso
In his 18 seasons in F1, Fernando Alonso has rarely been beaten by his team-mate. The last time was in 2022, when he was still driving for Alpine, and Esteban Ocon finished the championship behind him. Mind you, that was after suffering 8 retirements throughout the season.
This year everything suggests that Alonso, as he has always done, will be able to turn the situation around, but the truth is that, as of today, it is Stroll who has brought the first points to the team. Of course, with a slight dose of luck. In the Australian GP, Aston Martin was not in a position to finish in the points (if I finish Alonso’s, who was fighting for ninth place when he crashed into the wall), but the rain turned the race upside down and Stroll was called to the garage when it mattered. He managed to finish in sixth place, and scored 8 points for himself and the team. A very good haul given Alonso’s retirement.
In the Chinese Grand Prix it was more evident that Aston Martin was a step behind the midfield cars. After Alonso’s retirement due to brake problems in the AMR25, the Canadian driver could only finish the race in twelfth position. However, the subsequent disqualifications of the Ferrari cars and Pierre Gasly saw him climb to ninth position and thus be able to pick up two more points for himself and Aston Martin in the fight for the constructors’ championship.
Stroll himself admitted after the race that there was a lack of pace in the AMR25. “I thought the race came back to us a little bit after that, but then we got on the mediums, we had a bit of graining straight away, and we just didn’t have the pace to get back to the pack”. “It was good to have some good battles, but at the end of the day, we’re not fast enough, we have a lot of work to do until we can finish comfortably in the points.”
Watch out for Fernando Alonso
Fernando Alonso will be looking to reverse the bad start to the season this weekend. As of today, no one has any doubt that he will finish ahead of his team-mate, and the team is confident that if good results are obtained, they will come from the Spanish driver. But if we project a bad scenario, Alonso could be left very badly off. The Spaniard is already 43 years old, age is starting to be a hot topic in the F1 paddock, next year new regulations come into force, a new era in F1 in which Aston Martin has invested a lot of money, and if Fernando Alonso does not comply, he could find himself compromising his seat.
Right now it’s a scenario that’s hard to imagine, nobody in the team is considering it, but the shadow of a new project, even the shadow of Max Verstappen (there are known contacts between the driver and the team), are reasons to be alert. Lance Stroll almost certainly has the seat next year for obvious reasons, so Fernando Alonso has no choice but to do what he has always done, be as fast as possible and be the fastest in his team.