Fernando Alonso has had one of the worst starts to his career. After five races, his tally in the F1 World Championship remains at 0 points. The good news on a personal level is that, little by little, he is proving that he is still in top form: after having to retire from the first two races, the Asturian driver has managed to get the most out of what is currently the slowest car in the race, putting the AMR25 in a points position, something that was unthinkable. Now it is time for Aston Martin to step up.
Alonso and his race in Jeddah
In Sunday’s race, Fernando Alonso achieved a creditable eleventh place on the grid, just missing out on the points, with the slowest car of the weekend, on the fastest circuit of the year, and to achieve this, he had to give 100% on every lap of the Saudi Arabian track.
“It consumes you inside to do 50 qualifying laps, I don’t know how to race any other way,” said the visibly exhausted driver. ”We gave it our all, it’s in our DNA. It doesn’t matter if I’m fighting for the championship, for the podium, for P14… I’m guaranteed to give 100% every time, as if it were the race that decides the world championship.”
Fernando Alonso once again beat his teammate, Lance Stroll, who finished the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in 16th place. Despite the Asturian’s superiority, the Canadian remains ahead in the World Championship, thanks to the first two races, where accidents and weather conditions helped him sneak into the points. It seems that the time for Alonso to start scoring points will never come, but the truth is that now it could become a reality in the next few races.
Aston Martin updates
Aston Martin has most of its factory resources focused on next year’s new regulations, on the AMR26 with which they want to take a leap forward and put the team in contention for a place among the best in F1. However, there are still two groups of workers working on the AMR25. One of them is about to end its work on the current car and will move on to the 2026 organization chart.
This first group has been working on the first package of updates for the AMR25 and has almost completed the work. In the next race, at the Miami Grand Prix, the first new parts with the new wind tunnel will be introduced. The AMR25 is expected to improve, although there are several factors that could have a negative impact. There will be only a few updates, and they will be introduced during a sprint race weekend, so there will be little time to test their effectiveness.
But in the next race, the Italian Grand Prix at the Imola circuit, Fernando Alonso will see a total transformation of the AMR25. With this package of updates, Aston Martin is confident of taking a real step forward that will allow the Asturian driver to easily fight for points and, if everything goes 100% right, even take on the big four.
Aston Martin and the need to get it right
Aston Martin has high hopes for these updates. They are the first from the new wind tunnel and, together with the updates planned for the second half of the World Championship, will be the only ones for the AMR25 throughout the season. The outcome of the updates will set the pace from here to the end of the year. If they get it right, they’ll move forward, and if not, they’ll have to suffer until the end. There is a lot of uncertainty, as in recent years, every update by the team has been a step backward, not a step forward.
So, if everything goes as planned for Aston Martin, the next race in Miami will already see new improvements, which they hope will be enough to stop them from being the worst car on the grid, or at least stop them from being the slowest car, and in Italy, the new package could put Alonso back in the mid/high positions in the World Championship.