Alonso destroys Aston Martin and F1 forecasts

It’s not new, but no matter how it’s repeated, it’s still noticeable and noticeable. Fernando Alonsowith a car full of new things used the other day, at sprint classificationwas 14th and never had a chance to get in Q3the one with him 18th in the sprint raceachieved something seemingly unthinkable just a few hours before ‘qualifying’ this Saturday: He placed the green car in the top 10, in Q3. And not only that, he scraped up a few positions finishing 8th, a position he will occupy this Sunday on the starting grid of the F1 United States GP.

All this, in a weekend that seems to have started badly for the whole of Silverstonewhich always struggle to find the right settings quickly when it changes. In this track, Aston Martin made 6 important changes, a complete package of new parts to start correcting your course and make a good conclusion for 2025. Many other teams also brought new features, but what was seen on Friday and in Saturday’s sprint race was not encouraging. Not enough to think about Q3.

He came from 4 races where he exceeded any expectations in what was, according to the simulations, the 7th, 8th or 9th best car of the 10 on the grid. But in all of them he fought for Q3 and in the points and in three of those four he achieved the same prizes: in Zandvoort (7th in qualifying and 10th in the race), at Baku (8th in qualifying and 6th in the race) and Singapore (7th in qualifying and 8th in the race). They just escaped inside monzaa layout even more unfavorable for his car, with Alonso almost achieving a miracle in 11th place in qualifying and being a tenth away from the race points.

After the break, a month after Singapore, Aston Martin arrived in the United States with many new features and it was clear to Alonso that the Top-10 was more complicated because it was a more normal and representative track, with less room for surprises compared to urban. layouts like Baku or Singapore. And after being 14th in the sprint classification, he wants to use Saturday’s short race to continue testing his car and study the new package.

He then tackled the ‘qualy’ with many modifications and experiments on his car after all he had learned. And he did it again. He destroyed any pool, as Gasly did with a superb 7th place in an Alpine. Alonso took the maximum risk on his laps, and the proof of this was the massive oversteer he suffered in his Q1 turn, which allowed him to enter Q2. And finally he achieved the unthinkable. He also made it to Q3 in Austin and finished 8th.

“It’s better than we expected”

“I exceeded expectations. 8th place was better than we expected, but it was a very complicated weekend for us”Alonso argued.

“We made a few changes after Free Practice 1, we made other big changes to the car after the morning race (sprint), so we keep experimenting,” Fernando added, clarifying that there is still room for in progress. with the new package of evolutions, which he hopes to optimize at the next event in Mexico.

“Because the car is not totally good today, I wasn’t happy with itso it’s one of the challenges when you come with new parts in a sprint weekend and I think that hopefully for Mexico, with the normal free practice sessions, we can find a little bit more of the window where the new package (of parts) better”.

“It will be a tough race and the points will be tough”

“It was a difficult weekend and I think this Sunday the race will be difficult as well. In the sprint race, Haas was faster than us. It was a bit surprising that Magnussen was ninth and Hülkenberg was 12, so tomorrow scoring points will be difficult”added Fernando. However, they were also likely to struggle in the previous 4 races with an uncompetitive car. And he was already in that fight. With Alonso you don’t know. Will try again this Sunday.

“Eight teams (out of 10) have brought updates (new parts) this weekend, so we’re all in the same bag. It’s our job to adapt better and faster. In the sprint race, because I wasn’t in the top 8 (those scored), it took me a little while to test the tires and see the damage, but we didn’t have much speed than we saw. The race in theory would be more complex than what we’ve seen so far,” done.