Fernando Alonso reveals internal Aston Martin data as daunting deficit emerges

Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin are, at best, the “seventh” fastest team on the grid and lacking “three or four tenths” in the midfield fight.

Aston Martin is one of several teams caught out by correlation problems this season, forcing them to roll back on their Imola floor update to resolve the AMR24’s issues.

Fernando Alonso: What is for sure is that we are not the fifth team

Additional reporting by Pablo Hidalgo

But while the team is still holding down fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, the same position they achieved last year, they have not been able to repeat 2023’s impressive tally of podium results. In fact, Aston Martin don’t even have one top-three finish this season.

More worryingly though, Alonso reckons they’ve lost out to rivals Haas and Williams in the development race despite finishing ahead at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Alonso qualified behind Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg at the Marina Bay circuit but a good strategy, that included the undercut on the German, meant he took the chequered flag one place ahead of him.

“Four points, more than we deserved here because we are not in this position at all and now we have to think about the next ones,” he told DAZN.

“We suffered a lot all weekend and for the next races we have to raise the level if we want to score points. In Baku and here we scored points because it was two street circuits where we qualified well and everything went our way.

“As soon as we get to a normal circuit with normal characteristics, we don’t have the pace to score points and we have to raise our level.

“All the internal rankings we have within the team put us as the seventh or eighth team. We naturally have to be in 15th or 16th position, performance-wise.

“I spoke to Nico after qualifying and he said they were fifth, but if you talk to Williams they also say they are fifth. What is for sure is that we are not the fifth team.”

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Alonso has urged Aston Martin to bring upgrades for the AMR24 as the team needs to find “three or four tenths” to get back to the front of the midfield battle.

“We have performed well in the last two races but that should not cover up the lack of performance we have,” he said. “We are aware of that and we want to improve. We need new parts, three or four-tenths if we want to get back to leading the midfield.

“The team is doing its best, we drivers are doing our best when we have a good car and when we don’t have the car like in these last races, we have to keep fighting to score points.”

Having started the season with a run of six top-ten results, Alonso has managed just six points-scoring finishes in the following 12 races.

He is, however, still comfortably best of the rest behind the leading four teams’ drivers in the standings on 62 points, 38 ahead of Hulkenberg and his Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll.

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