Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin is but to repair some underlying points with its Method 1 automotive which have plagued its efficiency because the begin of the 2025 season.
The 2-time world champion endured a troublesome begin to the season, failing to attain a single level within the opening eight rounds whereas battling an uncompetitive AMR25.
Teammate Lance Stroll started the marketing campaign extra strongly with consecutive top-10 finishes in Australia and China, however was quickly affected by the identical limitations.
With simply 14 factors on board, the British F1 squad was left eighth within the constructors’ championship final month, solely forward of the struggling Alpine and Sauber groups.
Nonetheless, a significant improve package deal in Imola uplifted its fortunes, permitting Alonso to interrupt contained in the factors in his residence race in Spain earlier than bagging a formidable seventh-place end in Canada final week.
In actual fact, Alonso was fast all through the weekend at Gilles Villeneuve, ending inside the highest 5 in apply earlier than qualifying on the third row of the grid.
Nonetheless, regardless of the final two races displaying a transparent upward trajectory, the 43-year-old believes Aston Martin nonetheless “has work to do” to shut the hole to the entrance runners.
“It offers us a little bit bit extra confidence to push however there are nonetheless some weaknesses within the automotive because the starting that we nonetheless [have] not solved utterly,” he mentioned. “Particularly on the race tempo on Sunday we see the issues.
“Nonetheless numerous work to do, right this moment we led the midfield however the prime groups are nonetheless fairly distant and we have to shut that hole.”
Talking forward of the Canadian Grand Prix, Alonso shed extra gentle on the place the automotive is falling quick and cautioned that some points could persist via the rest of the season.
“It’s a mix of some issues. In all probability the effectivity just isn’t what we anticipated on this automotive,” he mentioned.”The extent of downforce we have to run typically is larger than what we’d like to. However to have some sort of grip within the corners, we have to sacrifice the straights.
“In qualifying you open the DRS and also you’re not penalised an excessive amount of, however within the race we do see a little bit of a handicap.
“There are a few concepts to enhance this 12 months’s automotive with out compromising time for subsequent 12 months. However there are issues within the 2025 automotive we’ll must maintain till the tip of the 12 months.”
Aston stays eighth within the championship standings, however now trails Haas and Racing Bulls by simply six factors because the midfield battle intensifies.
