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Aston Martin Fires Back at Fernando Alonso’s ‘Ninth-Fastest Team’ Remark
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Highlights
- Alonso rates Aston Martin eighth fastest in pure pace after Austin
- Started and finished 10th after a first-corner sprint race crash
- Sprint weekends and tire choices complicated pace comparisons
- Aston Martin showed stronger qualifying than race pace performance
- Mike Krack highlighted tire strategies and race variables’ impact
- Team will analyze data to improve qualifying and race pace
Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin ranked eighth on pure pace in Austin’s sprint weekend. He still started and finished 10th in the Grand Prix after a first-corner sprint crash.
He posted P4 in practice and P6 in sprint qualifying. But sprint weekends distort the form guide, and Pirelli’s range created bigger gaps between compounds than usual.
Many teams ran the C1 only in practice, accepting it was slower than the C3. Alonso also noted rookies adapting to the circuit and format, further skewing representative readings.
Teams largely avoided the C1 on Sunday due to a significant performance delta to the C3.
Post-race, Alonso underlined an ongoing split: stronger qualifying than race pace. Sustained stints exposed deficits against midfield rivals, leaving the AMR car vulnerable over longer runs.
Liam Lawson’s Racing Bull shadowed him within a second for long spells. After early losses and a safety-net gain, rivals stretched clear late. Alonso revised his estimate to ninth fastest.
Alonso recalibrated Aston Martin’s Austin standing from eighth to ninth on race pace.
He was unsure who filled ninth or 10th in the hierarchy. Alpine appeared deeper in trouble, while Haas and Sauber looked ahead. Williams operated to a different performance profile altogether.
Given the context, Alonso called 10th acceptable return. But he stressed the need for incremental gains before Mexico, especially on tyre management and degradation sensitivity.
Team principal Mike Krack urged caution on simple rankings. Divergent tyre strategies, offset pit windows, traffic, and DRS effects created noisy race data that obscured true car pace comparisons.
Krack said the AMR machine shows situational strengths by circuit and conditions, yet suffers on less-suited layouts. That variability is expected, so the priority remains maximising scoring chances.
Krack: Divergent tyre usage, traffic, and DRS made direct pace comparisons misleading in Austin.
Aston Martin will deep-dive the data to refine qualifying peaks and lift race pace. Expect focus on setup windows, start positioning, tyre choice robustness, and execution under traffic.
The objective is consistency across venues, converting one-lap flashes into sustainable stint pace and more reliable points returns as the season progresses.
Visual Summary
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Alonso: “Ninth fastest car — but we grabbed a point.”
Chasing pace: Aston Martin shone in qualifying,
but tumbled down the order on race day in a messy, tire-jumbled sprint weekend.
Daniel Miller reports on Formula 1 Grand Prix weekends with race-day analysis, team-radio highlights, and point-standings updates. He explains power-unit upgrades, aerodynamic developments, and driver rivalries in straightforward, SEO-friendly language for a global F1 audience.
