Fernando Alonso reckons it is time for Aston Martin to deliver on their updates on track rather than just talks and promises.
The start to its F1 2023 campaign seems like a distant memory now for Aston Martin. They started faltering midway last year and are yet to recover fully even as we approach halfway mark in the current 2024 season, as they sit a lonely sixth in the standings.
They are ahead of the likes of Alpine, Haas and Williams but behind the likes of Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes. The performance in F1 Spanish GP was far from acceptable where even a slow runner Alpine managed to out-qualify and out-score them.
It was somewhat expected but the level of downfall is getting frustrating for the team and also the drivers. “Sure, a little bit disappointed because we didn’t score any point,” said Alonso to media. “We deserved not to score any point because we didn’t have the pace the whole weekend, but in the race, it was extremely difficult.
“When you slide so much in the corners, also you kill the tyres. So you have two problems. You don’t have the pace, plus you have a lot of degradation. So all in all, it has been a very long race for us. We need to get better for us. We are missing downforce, pure load,” summed up Alonso, who wants Aston Martin to deliver rather than promise.
The team is bringing updates to races, but until and unless it doesn’t materialise, it doesn’t matter how many they bring about. “It is frustrating but there’s nothing you can do now so you start thinking in Austria immediately when you see the chequered flag and what you can do differently in Austria,” continued Alonso.
“It’s going to be painful as well because it has some characteristics of Barcelona with the long corners and the high. It’s going to be another tough weekend, also in Silverstone, arguably. So, yeah, we cannot get too frustrated. It’s time to work harder, to talk less, to deliver more. It’s what we want to do.
“I’m looking forward, but we’ve been upgrading the car a lot and we didn’t deliver the results. So now it’s also a matter of whatever we bring to the track, it does deliver what we expect and we start getting better and better. So as I said, we need to work hard, get better every race, but without too much talking or promising,” summed up Alonso, who noted ‘I’m a driver, not a technician’, when asked why the updates are not working.
Here’s how F1 Spanish GP panned out
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