Fernando Alonso has rued “not doing a good job” to overcome a “tricky” Aston Martin car during this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix.
After encountering trouble with its latest upgrades in Austin, Aston Martin were hopeful that a return to the conventional weekend format would boost its prospects.
But having languished off the pace throughout practice amid a focus on long runs, Lance Stroll was unable to escape the Q1 drop zone before Alonso ended up 13th.
Alonso inadvertently ensured he avoided consecutive Q1 eliminations when he span at Turn 3 in the closing minutes, marking his second such incident in two days.
The two-time World Champion admits that Aston Martin’s car has been “very tricky” to handle this weekend around the unique Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.
“Yesterday at [a] high-speed corner, I lost the car [at Turn 9], today on kerbs I lost the car,” he explained. “Seems that we’re on the edge of the grip always.
“I’ve been slow in every session, so not a bad qualifying or anything like that, we’ve been struggling the whole weekend. Tricky, we need to work altogether to get back to our best level which is obviously not the one we’re showing.”
Aston Martin chose to withdraw both cars from the starting grid in the United States Grand Prix, electing to revert Alonso back to the specification used in Qatar beforehand.
Alonso asserts that the cross-comparison demonstrated that the updated package, which enabled Stroll to recover to the points, provided the step forward anticipated.
However, the Spaniard accepts that the Silverstone squad are yet to optimise the new parts fully, which is continuing to hamper the team against its rivals.
“Obviously we had the Austin race which we used as a comparison between the two packages and the results were clear in favour of the new package,” he relayed. “We don’t have any concerns about that.
“It seems we’re not very confident now on the car, driving. We cannot extract the maximum and this is penalising us a lot.”
Fernando Alonso (ESP) Aston Martin F1 Team AMR23. 28.10.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 20, Mexican Grand Prix, Mexico City, Mexico, Qualifying Day.
Alonso insists that Aston Martin is missing “a little bit of everything” before clarifying that the side’s 2023 charger holds a deficit through every section of the lap in Mexico.
“Also, in this track we were losing one or two-tenths per corner, not just one sector that we’re just missing out there,” he explained. “The lap time is just gradually slow.
“We need to find more performance, everyone is trying to do their best. Still, I feel confident that we will show better from now until Abu Dhabi, and also tomorrow. We scored points in Austin starting from pitlane; hopefully tomorrow we can still score points, starting on the grid.”
Although Alonso believes this has been his toughest weekend of the season, the ex-Alpine racer concedes that he has not been at his “best” across the opening two days.
“This weekend has been particularly difficult for me,” he accepted. “Maybe Lance was a little bit more confident this weekend, but I was not doing a good job this weekend.
“I always felt on [the] backfoot and always not trusting car; as I said, big spin yesterday at high speed [that] could have been into the wall or anything like that. I was not at my best either, so we need to improve.”
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