Fernando Alonso sees progress with Aston Martin F1’s upgrades, but they lag behind rivals’ developments, affecting overall performance.
Alonso believes Aston Martin F1’s recent upgrades have moved the team forward but not to the same extent as their rivals.
Aston Martin F1 was among several teams that arrived with a comprehensive upgrade package for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, but the AMR24 struggled throughout the weekend.
Neither Aston Martin driver managed to qualify for Q3 at Imola. Fernando Alonso’s weekend was compromised due to an unusual error in the final practice, which forced his mechanics to scramble to repair his car in time for qualifying.
Qualifying 19th, Alonso’s race turned into a test session, resulting in his worst-ever finish in a Grand Prix, while Lance Stroll secured ninth place and two valuable points for the team.
Despite the paper-thin improvements to the AMR24, the team hasn’t given up, as Alonso explained that the new parts have indeed advanced the car. However, other teams have made more significant gains.
“I think we’ve lost performance relative to others,” he said in Monaco.
“We have improved our car’s performance, but others have seemed to make a slightly bigger step than us. We’ve dropped a bit in terms of positions. In my case, I haven’t been perfect in these two races; I didn’t drive well enough in Miami and Imola.”
“I think it’s more the search for answers that motivates me sometimes on a weekend, knowing the goals won’t be good enough to satisfy us or me when we’re not fighting for the top five, top seven, or whatever.”
“Sometimes you end up with a weekend of settings or testing. Instead of finishing 9th at best, I’d rather fix the car’s issues, abandon this weekend, and start fresh the next.”
“I think that’s a bit of what happened at Imola, which is good in a way because it might speed up solving the problems.”
Attempting to assess the AMR24’s behavior, Lance Stroll noted that the car wasn’t as stable as last year’s.
“It’s the usual stuff. Oversteer on entry, understeer mid-corner, those kinds of things. Riding the curbs is worse than last year; it’s definitely more challenging. Is it harder to stay in the right window? I don’t know if I’d say that, but it’s certainly a trickier balance to find compared to the car we had last year.”
Alonso agreed with Stroll’s assessment.
“There are some settings that could improve that – something we also tested at Imola, for example, on my car on Sunday.”
“But fundamentally, we need to keep working on the car’s balance. We’ve added downforce with all the improvements we’ve brought to the track, but we still can’t use all that downforce effectively in lap times because the balance might not be completely perfect in the corners.”
“But we understand this and have some ideas for the next development of the car and upcoming improvements. We’ll try to address these kinds of issues.”
“We’re not blind, we’re not in the dark, we’re aware of the situation. At the same time, it’s also the nature of these F1 cars, which become a bit more critical and harder to drive as you add downforce. It’s something we need to fix.”
When asked if he had tested the car’s improvements on the simulator before Imola, Alonso confirmed that he had, but noted that simulation doesn’t necessarily reflect the real impact on the track.
“The simulator is a bit more forgiving for many things, which the track does not allow.”
“When you put the numbers, the theoretical figures, on the simulator, you simply get more speed without too many issues – balance and things like that.”
“The simulator is a great tool for engineers and for drivers who want to learn the circuits and such.”
“For the final detail in settings or the actual behavior on the track, I think the simulator still isn’t like the real car. So we need to work a bit better on Fridays now.”
Alonso: Aston Martin’s F1 Balance Issues. Alonso: Aston Martin’s F1 Balance Issues. F1 2024 Alonso: Aston Martin’s F1 Balance Issues
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