Alonso doesn’t think the Aston Martin F1 team will recover quickly.
25.05.2024 Fernando Alonso (ESP) Aston Martin F1 Team AMR24. Day 8 of the Formula 1 World Championship took place in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on the qualifying track.
The Aston Martin Formula 1 team has been losing competitiveness lately, and Fernando Alonso doesn’t think that will change very soon.
Last season, Aston Martin was Red Bull’s main adversary and a consistent podium finisher until the team lost steam and finished in fifth place.
Even though Aston Martin introduced the greatest upgrades of any F1 team in 2024, they did not close the gap to the top four and instead moved back towards RB.
Since Aston Martin brought a sizable update package to Imola, Alonso has not progressed past Q1 or scored points, raising fears that the AMR24 is now more difficult to drive.
The Spaniard claims that while the Silverstone-based team gets ready for the 2025 rules, the most recent races have been a “wake-up call” and a “crucial” learning experience.
After finishing outside the points in Monaco, Alonso stated, “These two weekends have been vital to learn our vulnerabilities, to understand the car, and to progress.”
“You usually learn more from failures than from successes, so I believe we will continue to learn a lot during the remainder of 2025 and 2026.
It’s a major wake-up call, and these two races will be really beneficial to us.
The two-time champion says he doesn’t anticipate a quick recovery and that it will take “a few races” before his team releases their next significant performance enhancement package.
However, Alonso also disclosed that Aston Martin will continue to introduce minor modifications to practically every race weekend, including those in Canada and Spain, where he is a native.
“We need to attempt to reverse this trend, since we had some reservations after Imola and in Monaco that we weren’t able to move quickly,” he continued.
“We have to give it our all and get better on the track to get the results until we bring a substantial change in the car, which will take a few races.
“We must stick together because there will be good days and bad days.”
Although Alonso was disappointed that Aston Martin had moved “back to the midfield instead of the front runners,” he is still optimistic that his AMR24 can be improved upon.
Overall, it was a challenging weekend. Obviously, you can learn a lot from your experiences, so that’s what we want to do, but it was a rough one.
The current form is definitely not ideal; rather than focusing on the front runners, we seem to be returning to the midfield.
“However, we’ve seen from several examples how rapidly things can change. For example, a nice improvement on the automobile may move you up to five or six positions. It’s what we want to achieve with the next one, and we’re working hard to make it happen.”
