Fernando Alonso calls for urgent fixes at Aston Martin after poor DRS performance limits overtaking and hampers Formula 1 race results.
Alonso is frustrated by his car’s lack of top speed. The Aston Martin F1 driver is annoyed that he has to pull off riskier overtakes than his rivals, with no alternative.
“Mixed feelings,” said Alonso. “Obviously, I’m happy with the points. It’s ninth place and the first two points of the championship, and in the end we avoid the question next Thursday about whether that will be the weekend it happens.”
“I was probably expecting a bit more from the race. I felt more competitive in qualifying than in the race. We had a lot of front tyre degradation, so the front left was worn out after seven laps.”
“And then we lacked top speed, so we lost a lot on the straights. I didn’t make a single overtake with DRS. They were all done in Turn 3, on the outside, which is not a normal place to overtake, but we have to invent those kinds of moves.”
“In Imola, it was also in Turn 7 that I made three overtakes in the last few laps. So we need to solve this situation and start overtaking on the straight with DRS, like everyone else does.”
The Spaniard denies this is a Formula 1-wide issue, pointing instead to a characteristic of the AMR25: “It’s only for us because everyone else is overtaking, so we need to improve a bit our straight-line speed and also the degradation. As I said, Saturdays are quite competitive and on Sundays we seem to fall back.”
“So we’re happy today, with our first points, a good safety car at the end, good timing and other things. But if we go back to Thursday and redo the weekend, we need to change something on the car so it’s a bit more suited to Sunday than to Saturday.”
The two-time world champion now hopes his team can aim for consistent top 10 finishes: “It’s just to relieve a bit of pressure from everyone in the team and try to get some consistency in Q3. That was the third consecutive race in Q3, that’s the first step.”
“If we manage to be consistently in the top 10 on Saturday and Sunday, it will definitely help everyone. We need to score points, even if Sauber scored a lot here. It’s mandatory for us to score points every weekend or every other weekend, so we need to raise our level.”
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