Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin have been falling down the pecking order since the start of the 2024 season. The Silverstone outfit hasn’t scored a single point in the ongoing triple header. However, the British GP pace looked good as the team brought a couple of upgrades. Nonetheless, a qualifying blunder from Aston Martin seems to have put Alonso on the back foot.
“Carlos, Oscar, and I were struggling on the warm-up lap. They didn’t start their lap in the best possible way, and I started it in first gear, coming out of the last corner”, said Alonso according to as.com.
Explaining why he didn’t improve on the final run, he added, “When I got to turn three I was already half a second worse than the previous lap, so we aborted because there was no way to recover.”
Secuencia completa de la Outlap de Fernando Alonso.
Vergonzoso. Simplemente VERGONZOSO @AstonMartinF1 pic.twitter.com/baTsfZFt3h
— Nachez (@Nachez98) July 6, 2024
Alonso was amongst the last cars to leave the garage and caught up with Sainz and Piastri for track position before starting the lap. This led to them squabbling and neither of the three was able to prepare the tires well for the final run in Q3. As a result, none of them were able to improve their position in the final.
Aston Martin had the last garage at the very end of the pitlane. As a result, the Spaniard wondered why his team couldn’t send him ahead of the competitors. Questioning the team about the same, he said, “We were in the last garage, that’s the best position because you have the luxury of seeing them coming and you can leave before them. I don’t really know why we left last.”
Alonso will start the race on Sunday from P10 but felt the car had pace for a third-row start. The Spaniard believed that the car had the pace to beat Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg, who were starting in front as he was P3 in Q2. Yet, fighting for lower points wasn’t what Aston Martin’s vision was for 2024.
What is the reason behind Aston Martin’s 2024 struggles?
Aston Martin has brought the most performance upgrades of any team since the season started. Yet, the team seems to be slipping away from the Top 4, and the likes of Haas, V-CARB, and Alpine are catching up to them.
Just like in 2023, Aston Martin’s upgrades haven’t really worked. The Silverstone outfit never clearly admitted what the weakness of the AMR24 is. Meanwhile, McLaren and Ferrari, have been open about their car’s deficiencies. The Woking team is weak around traction zones while Ferrari struggles in the high-speed corners.
This ambiguity of Aston Martin then leads to difficulty in analyzing whether the upgrades worked. It’s a circle of ‘we’ve understood the problem and are working to solve it.’ Amid all this Tom McCullough, the Performance Director came out with the brutal reality.
“We know what we’re trying to achieve, it’s just quite hard to achieve it. And that is the bottom line, both mechanically and aerodynamically”, said McCullough according to The Race.
Aston Martin is shifting partially into the new factory, which is still under construction. This transition period might also be the reason why the correlation of data isn’t accurate. Hopefully, with the Honda partnership and new premises ready, Aston Martin will contend for the championship in 2026.
