Fernando Alonso managed to finish the race in Canada in seventh position, achieving the goal set by Aston Martin at the start of the season, but now they will have to continue to fulfill it in the rest of the Grand Prix races: to be the best car in the midfield, the best car among the “mortals.”
Alonso gets the most out of the AMR25
Much has changed for Aston Martin since the start of the season. The team’s goal at the beginning of the year was for the new car to lead the midfield. But once preseason testing began, the evidence was much more discouraging. In the first few races, Aston Martin managed to score some points with Lance Stroll, but the feeling was that this was one of the worst cars in the world championship.
It wasn’t until May 18 that Aston Martin finally managed to come up with its first mid-season improvements in years. They weren’t as effective as hoped, but they were enough for Alonso to work his magic. Since then, the team has had four consecutive races in Q3 and two consecutive races in the points.
Aston Martin is late to the party
The improvements at Aston Martin have come late. The Silverstone team has been immersed in a total revolution in recent months and barely had time to build a reasonably competitive car for the start of the season. But once everything was ready, the improvements from the factory began to arrive. The new engineers, including Adrian Newey, and the new wind tunnel seem to be providing positive data for the Aston Martin to continue its evolution.
But these changes are still insufficient. Fernando Alonso is managing to get the car into the top ten on Saturdays, which is key to scoring points in the race. But the weakness is evident on Sundays, when they never manage to match or improve on their race result, always being overtaken by rivals, as the car lacks top speed and continues to degrade the tires excessively.
“The weakest point is on Sundays. There are races where we are two or three tenths behind the top teams on Saturday, but then on Sunday we finish a minute behind them. We have to improve on Sundays, no matter what,”
Fernando Alonso leads the midfield
Finishing as the best car in the midfield is Aston Martin’s goal between now and the end of the season, and in Canada they achieved it. He finished seventh, and it wasn’t eighth due to Lando Norris’ mistake in the final laps with his teammate Piastri, but all the cars ahead of him were the top teams in the World Championship, Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, and Ferrari, all of them a step above.
Fernando Alonso continues to call for improvements in speed, and it looks like these improvements will arrive in three weeks, on the first weekend of July, at Silverstone. If these new updates work, Fernando Alonso will be able to consolidate his position among the best in the midfield and try to challenge the top of the grid, which is still one step ahead.
Fernando Alonso already leads the midfield with his AMR25. He managed to be the best of the “mortals” and showed his quality on the track. But we must not forget that part of the success is in his hands: Stroll had another weekend to forget, finishing last among those who finished the race. The Canadian seems to be going through one of his worst moments as an Aston Martin driver, and there is already a lot of noise building up around him.