The Spanish Grand Prix, like Imola and Monaco, was very complicated for Fernando Alonso, who finished outside the points and asked his team for more work and fewer promises, in reference to the latest improvements announced, which when push came to shove did not work on the track. The Asturian is preparing to suffer too this weekend in Austria and the next one in Silverstone, although Aston Martin technicians see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. He is confident that recovery will come after the summer.
Alonso has only scored points in one of the last four events on the calendar (Canada). And Aston Martin has gone from being the fifth force on the grid to being stalked by teams from the bottom of the table. He update package introduced in Imola did not work and those at Silversrtone are losing the development race alarmingly, while others that started worse, such as Alpine, are moving forward.
“Improve as soon as possible”
In Barcelona Alonso set a deadline: “I hope it starts a new World Cup in Hungary”, said. Today, in Spielberg, the Asturian qualified his message: “I hope the next update works, hopefully, but I’m not a technician. “We are where we are and we want to change it and improve as soon as possible,” he warned.
Fernando joins his team’s motto: calm and work: “ There is no magic solution from one day to the next, so we have to work hard.” Looking at his prospects this weekend in Austria, he assures that “nothing will change. If we are lucky, we will fight for some points. We can’t be disappointedthis is where we are.”
Regarding the news of the day at Aston Martin, the renewal of his teammate Stroll, Alonso values it positively: “Lance has spent many years on this team. He has spent almost his entire racing career at Aston Martin. I personally feel very good this year. and a half that we have been working together. “I think his knowledge of what the team is like on the inside is very helpful to me as well.”
Krack: “We have understood the car problem”
Mike Krack, Alonso’s team boss admits that they were already expecting problems at the Circuit de Barcelona, but insists that there is room for improvement, with more than half the championship and the summer break ahead: “We knew that Barcelona would be one of the most difficult tracks, although we were missing thousandths to enter Q3. That gave us hope, but it was not justified. Expectations were confirmed. It is a circuit that does not forgive, we know where we are and we have to fix it,” she acknowledges.
“Five races await us in six weeks. After Monaco, Imola and Canada we have already understood what is happening to this car and it’s a matter of fixing it, but we don’t have time at this stage of the season. Meanwhile, we must achieve the best possible results, as we did in Montreal,” says Krack.
Keep calm
“The results in the wind tunnel are encouraging. Mercedes needed several races from when they introduced the improvements until they got on the podium. “They were at our competitive level at the start of the season and now they are ahead. We see the gaps they have made in terms of lap times. This shows, as with McLaren’s progress in 2023 and 2024, that it is possible. But it is not automatic, you have to work hard and take steps forward,” said the Aston Martin boss.
“Sometimes it takes time, but we are still a growing team. In general, the important thing in this situation is to stay calm, focus on our problems and work,” adds Krack, who expects to suffer in Austra, but less than in Spain: “The Red Bull Ring is a somewhat different circuit, you have more straights and DRS, short corners and also a couple of long corners. I don’t think it will be as hard for us as Barcelona,” he predicts.
Relative earnings
In the same line, Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough, is optimistic and believes that they have “all the potential” to improve the car more than in previous years. He considers that the AMR24 is more flexible in terms of development: “Our car, in features, DRS efficiency, is a different world compared compared to last year, but it doesn’t matter much, because everyone has improved, it is a relative improvement. “We are pushing very hard in the new factory, in the delivery time of some of the parts we are beginning to see the benefits of it.”
“I think that, from now until the end of the season, we have all the potential to make several relative gains compared to what we have been able to do in the past. We know what we are trying to achieve, it is quite hard and that is the fundamental thing, both from a mechanical and aerodynamic point of view,” says McCulloug, aware, like Krack, that If after the summer they do not manage to turn the situation around, heads may roll en Silverstone.
2024-06-27 17:05:04
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