Fernando Alonso achieved his best result of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing in seventh place and adding another four points to his World Championship tally. Although he was satisfied with the result, he insisted on the major problem with the current AMR25, which is its race pace. In qualifying, the car is competitive, but it loses performance on Sundays, losing the positions achieved on Saturday.
Fernando Alonso and the AMR25
Since the upgrades arrived in Italy, Fernando Alonso has made it into Q3 in all four races and finished in the points in the last two rounds of the championship. This shows that the car performs very well on a single lap, but in races, when the tires start to lose performance, the drop in the AMR25 is evident. The Oviedo native celebrates the points he earned on Saturday.
“It seems like a habit to be in the points now, but it’s because we’re qualifying well. If we hadn’t finished sixth on the grid in Canada, we might not have finished in the points. There were some really fast cars in the race, the Williams, the Haas, surprisingly Esteban (Ocon) was up front and also Hulkenberg, who came out of nowhere to fight for the win. If we start 12th or 13th, we’re not going to score points. We’re on a fine line between scoring and not scoring. Lately, the qualifying sessions and races have gone well for us, but we can’t take anything for granted, we have to keep working.”
“When I had new tires or tires in good condition, I held on to the DRS. But when I started to get a little graining, it was free fall. We tried to hold on a little longer before the first pit stop because if I stopped so early, I would have fallen almost to the back of the group. In the end, I fell anyway because I lost a lot of time with the graining.”
Improvements for Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso is asking the team to make an effort, although he does not want to compromise next season’s work. But he is aware that if they can achieve the same consistency on Saturdays as they do in the races, they could be in contention from now until the end of the season.
“The weakest point is Sunday. 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,” insisted the Spaniard.
As Grada3 revealed last week, Aston Martin will have new upgrades at the Silverstone Grand Prix. Although there is no official confirmation, Fernando Alonso hinted at this after the race. While explaining how his perspective has changed in recent weeks, he dropped the news revealed by this media outlet last week, insisting that improvements must be made because the next few races could be more complicated than the last one.
“Well, you probably have another incentive for the races ahead to pick up points here and there. Although on the calendar we had Canada as the most favorable race for us and for our aerodynamic package. When you get to those races, you can’t afford to fail and get zero points, because in Austria or Silverstone we’re going to have to suffer a little more. In Canada, we did our job well, we ticked the box, now we’re going to Austria and Silverstone with a little more caution because we think they’re going to be more difficult circuits. Although at the same time, at Silverstone we might have some improvements and we’re eager to experiment.”
These new improvements from Aston Martin will mean a gain in aerodynamics, which will improve the top speed of the AMR25 and prevent the car from suffering the extreme degradation it is currently experiencing. He hopes to consolidate his position at the top of the midfield and be able to challenge the teams at the front.