Azerbaijan GP“We had the worst car and nothing happened”, Alonso raced in Baku, although it didn’t matter much
Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin AMR25 completed another race without mechanical issues or incidents... but again when its performance was so poor that it didn’t matter. This complicates the possibility of finishing fifth in the World Championship.
It is clear that Carlos Sainz monopolized almost all the attention of the Spanish fans this Sunday in Baku, because regarding Fernando Alonso it soon became very clear that the Asturian was not going to gain anything positive unless chaos took over the end of the race.
And, as it didn’t happen, a regrettable rule was fulfilled again: the day the Aston Martin is slow, nothing breaks or unexpected events occur. What’s the result? A 15th position extremely disappointing and useless on a circuit that, on the other hand, did not favor the car with the lowest top speed on the grid at all.
“If we have a car to do that, I think I will score points”
The start and the penalty
After this bland race for Fernando Alonso, the Asturian driver shared his impressions about what happened this Sunday in Baku. First of all, he admitted his fault in receiving a five-second penalty for jumping the start.
“In those moments you react to any movement in front of you and unfortunately I reacted to Oscar [Piastri],” he pointed out regarding the championship leader, who was the first to jump the start. “Although I don’t think it changed my race at all, we had very little pace and the final position is exactly the same.”
The Aston Martin driver is not wrong, finishing 15th and he would have barely gained Ocon's position with five seconds less.
“Monza was the anomaly”
Furthermore, Fernando Alonso pointed out that the good performance shown on a fast circuit like Monza should not be taken as a reference, as it was an anomaly. “In Monza I think it was a very strange weekend in terms of performance, because we thought we had the last car and I qualified within Q3.”
“And in the race we expected to have the last car and we were fighting for points. That is the anomaly, here we thought we had the last car and we did. Performances like Monza happen very rarely,” the Asturian stated.
Be that as it may, the truth is that Alonso and Aston Martin experienced another race where nothing unexpected happens when the car is not in a position to score due to pure performance. “This time we had the worst car and nothing happened, there were no flags, no safety cars, no reliability issues... it only happens when we are in front, but that is the trend of the year.”
Finally, Fernando Alonso pointed out that in Singapore Aston Martin will return to “normality”, but that is between 11th and 15th. If we have a car to do that, I think I will score points.”
After this race in Azerbaijan, Aston Martin has dropped to seventh place in the constructors' championship. Now, Williams is fifth with 101 points, 29 more than Racing Bulls and 39 more than Fernando Alonso's team.
Fotos: Aston Martin F1