Over the last few weeks, Fernando Alonso He has not hesitated to harshly criticize the performance of his Aston Martin, with which he has only scored 10 points in six races. After another disappointment in the Sao Paulo GP, the two-time world champion chose to bite his tongue so as not to further upset the management leadership of the Silverstone team. “I can’t be completely honest, but I think all our rivals improve a lot,” he explained about the drop in performance of the AMR25 throughout this weekend at Interlagos.
“The other teams are capable of putting it all together and more of the same will happen in Qatar, where Friday will be our best day,” Alonso said, with a mixture of sarcasm and resignation. His fourteenth place at the finish line, after losing the battle against the Racing Bulls, Haas or Williams, had left him with a logically bad taste in his mouth. Above all due to the plummeting performance of his car, which on Friday had shown signs of success at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.
The Asturian finished fourth in the only free session (1:10.606), only 12 thousandths slower than Nico Hulkenbergthird in the table. Late on Friday, the Asturian achieved fifth place in the shootout from the race to the sprint. His time in SQ3 (1:09.496) was 25 hundredths off. Lando Norrisauthor of the pole. Furthermore, during the second stint of the session he went even faster (1:09.330), with a time that would have lifted him to second place on the grid.
Not even with the hard ones
All those good prospects began to go wrong on Saturday, when Alonso did enough to hold off one of the Ferraris in the sprint race. His sixth place at the finish line, which was worth three points, heralded access to Q3 in the qualy. However, that achievement once again remained out of reach. Aston Martin did not know how to take advantage of the mistakes of Max Verstappen y Lewis Hamiltoneliminated in Q1 and Q2, respectively. In fact, the AMR25 lost pace to four theoretically inferior adversaries: Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls), Oliver Bearman (Haas), Pierre Gasly (Alpine) y Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber).
During the first two days, the performance of the green car seemed to be optimized with the medium tires, which offered even better results over one lap than the soft ones. These data, however, did not convince the team’s strategists, who chose to play on the opposite foot. From the beginning, Alonso and Stroll played a tough game. It took a lot of work for both of them to get those tires up to temperature, which is why they suffered during the two restarts, after the track starts. Gabriel Bortoleto y Charles Leclerc.
“I dared to take a little risk. If we did the same as the others, we were probably going to finish behind them, so we tried something different. It didn’t work, but at least we tried,” admitted Alonso, shortly before describing his fourteenth place at the finish line as “disappointing.”
Alonso and Stroll, during the parade before the race.
That same verdict was shared by Lance Strollpenultimate at the finish line, only ahead of Yuki Tsunoda. “The hard tire didn’t work well for us either, but in the end it was due to the car’s lack of pace,” the Canadian conceded. During the race, the owner’s son left an enlightening conversation with Gary Gannon. “How’s your balance, Lance?” asked his track engineer. “I’m not going to comment, there’s really nothing to say,” the pilot replied.
That frustration was also evident through Alonso’s radio. “Are we running against someone?” the man from Oviedo asked ironically, in relation to the position of Carlos Sainz and the aforementioned Lawson. “Where are they?” insisted the double winner at Le Mans. After scoring only 10 points in the last six races, Fernando has lost another place in the World Championship, this time in favor of Oliver Bearman.
Haas, just two points away
As for the Constructors’ World Championship, the outlook continues to darken for Aston Martin, whose seventh place is in jeopardy against Haas, which already only has a minimal disadvantage (72-70). During the last two races, the team led by Hey Komatsu has added 22 points, compared to only three for the British team.
For weeks now, all efforts at the Silverstone factory have been focused on the 2026 World Cup. In any case, the three remaining events (Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi) could leave the team even more affected. Mike Krackresponsible for runway operations. “We knew that today would not be easy and we lacked the rhythm to fight for the points. We tried a different strategy, with long initial runs with hard tires, but we did not have the necessary speed,” summarized the Luxembourger, one of the most upset by Alonso’s acidic comments.