Fernando Alonso disappointed with Aston Martin' change of plans

Fernando Alonso disappointed with Aston Martin’s mid-season results
Fernando Alonso has expressed his disappointment with Aston Martin’s 2024 Formula 1 season. After an impressive start in 2023, the team is now behind in points. The team will have to work assiduously if it hopes to return to the top of the standings.

/ Antoine Lapeyre / Fernando Alonso expects more work on the car.
Fernando Alonso, a driver at Aston Mastin, recently expressed his disappointment at his team’s current season in Formula 1. While the team had started the 2023 season at the top of the standings with the Spaniard often finishing on the podium, this season, the performances seem to be different for the team.

The Spanish pilot, who has signed a new contract with the team for a duration of two years, regrets the performances of the past year as he has not managed to take the lead so far.

Another disappointment for the team

Last year, towards the end of the season, Aston Martin had struggled to develop a car capable of competing with the improvements of other cars on the grid. While Fernando Alonso had started the season with six podiums, the second part ended with only two podiums and 2 retirements. Complications that seem to have persisted in 2024.

During the first half of the 2024 season, Alonso has not managed to step on the podium yet, his best result being a fifth place at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. At Spa-Francorchamps, the Spanish driver still managed to secure eighth place after arriving ninth before George Russell’s disqualification.

This season, Fernando Alonso has scored a total of 49 points while he is in ninth place in the drivers’ standings, just ahead of his teammate Lance Stroll. These results, much lower than last year’s, reflect the development issues on the car.

Fernando Alonso was expecting more.

Interviewed by the media, Alonso expressed his disappointment with Aston Martin at this mid-season. “A little disappointed,” he began by answering. “We can’t hide the fact that today we are fighting with Williams, AlphaTauri (now Racing Bulls), and Alpine, whereas last year, we were looking towards the top four teams. Now, they are out of reach, and we are simply defending ourselves against the teams behind us,” he admitted.

It must be recognized that four teams have particularly dominated the beginning of this season. With Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes each having over 250 points, Aston Martin takes fifth place in the constructor’s championship with only 73 points, trailing the team ahead by 193 points. Despite Fernando Alonso not retiring from any races, he has still not managed to score points in every race. This was notably the case in Hungary where a disagreement with his teammate had pushed him out of the points.

At the beginning of 2024, Aston Martin could still hope to aim for fourth place in the constructors’ standings instead of Mercedes. But while the first races were still scoring points, since Imola at the beginning of May, this is no longer the case. Alonso, who had lost some hope before the summer break, acknowledges that there will be a lot of work to do to get back to the top of the standings. « Even at the beginning of the year. In qualifying especially, we were always in the top five, top six. So, definitely, [there is] a lot of work to do during the summer break and the second part of the year. We will not give up, but we have to work. »

In short, Aston Martin will have to redouble its efforts to regain its competitiveness as Fernando Alonso is starting to lose patience.