Fernando Alonso frustrated after losing out on a points finish in F1 Italian GP, as Lance Stroll speaks minimal to media.
After a surprise Q3 finish in F1 Italian GP at Monza on Saturday, Aston Martin’s Alonso made a good start to be seventh after smart clearance of Gabriel Bortoleto in the pits. He had good pace to at least finish seventh if not more, but for his unfortunate luck, that he was forced to retire.
His front left suspension broke after running wide on the kerb. It is not clear if the kerb hit damaged it or it is down to some other issue. But Alonso was left hugely frustrated after losing out on a potential points haul, in the fight against Williams, Visa Cash App RB and Haas.
“Using that kerb every lap basically and they keep using it now, only on our car,” said Alonso to media. “We had suspension problem, these things happen when we are in a scoring race. Some races we were dead last, nothing happened, like Spa, we were running one lap behind the leader. Not sure, everyone is using the kerb and the cars are running – 19 cars are okay.
“In Monaco, I think I was P6, retired with an engine problem, in Monza, I was P7 and I retired with suspension problem. There are dozens of points…yeah, the luck probably, was not with us. It is frustrating that I should have maybe 20-30 points more than what I have, not down to me. But yeah, it is the way it is, unfortunately, I am used to it,” summed up Alonso.
Trackside engineering head Mike Krack noted about analysis to be done, but cleared that there was no warning about a potential problem either. He didn’t wish to speculate either. “No, we didn’t see anything,” he said to media. “It would have been easy to say it went wide or anything but we didn’t see anything unusual and that is why I think it’s important to do this kind of analysis properly before you – it’s easy to point the driver, it’s easy to point any kind of incident.
“You need to stay factual in such situations. What we had to do is tell Lance to be careful in that area. And that is all you can do in such a situation. Make sure that the sister car goes a little bit careful even if it’s not related. But that is something that you have to do and then you have to do the analysis properly. Yes, this is something that we need to really check properly.
“Because with this generation of cars, we have seen issues that we have never had. Like, a lot is also because the cars are touching a lot more with the floor. So we have seen in other areas failures that we have never had before. Not that they have led to DNF, but where you see, oh, we never had anything like that. Because the cars are running so stiff and so low. So there is a different loading on the car.
“I cannot confirm that this is related to the suspension. We need to check properly the parts, the failure mode. We need the experts to have a look at how everything is looking, how the fibres are looking. Go through the track data and conclude from there,” summed up Krack. Aston Martin returned empty handed after Stroll was unable to score due to a problem in the pit stop.
He already had a tangle with Esteban Ocon, for which the Frenchman was handed a penalty. But he dropped further after a slow stop which was not broadcasted on the world feed. Post-race, Stroll was pretty frustrated and barely spoke a sentence when asked by media about the Ocon incident, the pace and also what happened in the pit stop.
“Yup [it didn’t do much despite trying 55 laps],” said Stroll to media. “No [not much to say]. I don’t know, I haven’t heard [about] it (penalty to Esteban). I don’t have anything to say about it. Not much [to take away from the weekend]. It [pace] was okay.”
Krack termed it as a plain frustration and ruled out anything further on it. Considering the low degradation, there was nothing that Aston Martin could have done eventually. “It was always going to be a tough race for us today here in Monza,” he said. “We managed to make up a few positions with our tyre strategy and staying out long on that first stint.
“Unfortunately, we had some reliability issues during the pitstop at the end of the race and ended up in P18. We were hoping for a Safety Car which could have helped us at the right time to finish just about in the points but there weren’t any opportunities. Also, we have an issue on the pit country that we need to understand.
“We have downloaded now the log data and this is another thing that we have to deal with. I think these situations when you have a race with almost no degradation and you start from the back, you have to hope for opportunities. We always get safety cars when we have done our pit stops, so we said let’s wait until the safety car comes this time and then it doesn’t come.
“It is normal that you are a bit frustrated because you are fighting for nothing although you are pushing to the limit. So I can understand a certain level of frustration [of Stroll]. I think the strategy went really well because everything went to plan more or less [on Alonso’s side]. We knew Gabriel in front was very fast on the straight so we could take his DRS.
“We were dreaming a bit to replicate the Austria race where we were in the DRS of Liam all the time. And it worked out pretty well. I think we called at the right moment to box, managed to pass Gabriel and it would have been quite a strong finish.
“I think we had a little bit the upper hand in the beginning on the hard. I don’t know how it would have gone, obviously, later on in the race. Albon was fast, I think it would have been difficult but I think we could have finished it.”
Here’s Fernando Alonso passing Gabriel Bortoleto: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-alonso-jumps-bortoleto-in-pit-stop-head-to-head.1842625384022247341
Here’s DNF for Fernando Alonso: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-alonso-out-on-lap-25-after-suspension-failure.1842615987959149919
Here’s moment between Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-ocon-hit-with-a-penalty-for-forcing-stroll-off-track.1842627223193339219
Here’s Gabriel Bortoleto on his race