Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin’s Formula 1 driver, believes the team is likely to face a “tricky period” next season. He believes the team will be able to regularly contend for race wins in the following year.
The Silverstone outfit progressed tremendously in 2023 where it contended for race titles and secured three second places. Alonso managed to secure podiums for eight times last year.
However, his team-mate Lance Stroll could not catch-up to the Spaniard. It restricted the team’s progress to fifth place in the constructors’ championship from seventh place.
Alonso admitted that the team’s performance out-shined the expectations in his first year. But he remained cautious in his expectations for next year. He believes further progress will be more challenging.
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“The starting point is a little bit better than what I thought,” said the Spaniard. “But now the real difficulty starts.
“I think the first step, I will not say that it’s easy to be competitive. But I think with so many examples, like Alpine last year, is to be sometimes even in the top five or something, when we were in a happy place some weekends.
“We see AlphaTauri, how much they’ve improved during this season. So, let’s say that that first step, to become a top 10 contender, is the easiest part.
“Now comes the tricky period for Aston Martin. I think the next two or three years – to find that extra bit, to create something that no one has in that moment, to be creative, to be innovative. I think that’s maybe the biggest question mark that we need to face. And I think no one has the answer.”
Alonso claims that team has much better understanding of its car.
“I think there are clear indications of some parts of the car that they were under-performing for a few events,” he noted. “They were also different philosophies on the pitlane. But also for us in the way you try to extract the performance of these cars.
“And I think now with all the experiments and all the knowledge of this year. We think we understand better the direction to develop the car.
“But these things are moving constantly. I don’t think that there is a magic bullet and a recipe to develop the car. If so, it would be very easy for everyone.
“But things that you maybe think now and trust now, in six months’ time. Because maybe the trend on the pitlane is to maybe move the airflow in a different way, they get outdated and very quickly. So we need to keep an eye [on things].”
