After helping Michael Schumacher find his foot in F1, Flavio Briatore became a manager to Fernando Alonso and secured him an F1 seat with Minardi. Having extensive experience in the sport, recently, the Italian was spotted criticizing Ferrari’s latest performance. Even though the Maranello-based team has received several accolades from various quarters, Alonso’s manager is unimpressed with their resurgence, as reported by Il Riformista.
Since the Dutch Grand Prix, Ferrari’s performance has drastically improved. They broke Red Bull’s dominant streak with a win at the Singapore GP. Additionally, they have been involved in the mix for the podium results and also secured two back-to-back pole positions in Monza and Singapore.
Ferrari, with 285 points has now narrowed its gap with Mercedes and is just 20 points behind. With this, they have made the battle for P2 in the constructors’ championship considerably more exciting. Despite these improvements in the points column, Flavio Briatore, the current manager of Fernando Alonso, who was shamed for his involvement in the 2008 Crash Gate affair, does not find much grace in the Maranello cars.
Fernando Alonso’s Manager Flavio Briatore evaluates Ferrari critically
The website Il Riformista recently interviewed Briatore who appeared to analyze the Ferrari drivers’ performance, though in an overly critical manner. The Italian doesn’t appear pleased with Ferrari’s rising trajectory. Instead, he thinks that they are on the same level as McLaren.
In his words, Briatore said, “Ferrari is more or less there, it has to play with the McLarens. Unfortunately, there is nothing fantastic to say about the Maranello cars.”
Compared to Ferrari, Briatore’s client Fernando Alonso’s team, Aston Martin is not doing too well. After a strong start to the season, their pace has fallen off. Currently they are in danger of slipping down to P5 in the constructors’ standings.
Has Aston Martin passed the Honeymoon stage?
Aston Martin put a lot of effort into getting better during the winter. They did get a good start to the season too, finishing on the podium in 6 out of the opening 8 races. However, following the Canadian GP, they entered a slump.
Several factors contributed to this downturn. Whereas Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari’s upgrades worked wonders, Aston Martin’s upgrades seemed to take them backwards.
According to racing news 365, Alonso quickly explains Aston Martin’s lack of progress. He stated, ” You start the weekend and you feel the car is not responding to your inputs. Then you start changing a few things on the setup and you’re just improving one axle making worse the other axle, so you’re dealing with a fine line that you’re never happy with. It happened too often in July.”
Since Lance Stroll hasn’t performed well, Fernando Alonso has been putting up most of the effort, making it challenging to manage the rising traffic. This has also soured the relationship that Alonso has with Aston Martin. They seemed to be on good terms in the initial stages, but as seen in the recently concluded Japanese GP, the Spaniard won’t shy away from calling the team out, even in public.
