As the first signs of discontent spread over the radio in Singapore, Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa reminded Fernando Alonso that his AMR23 is a “competitive car”, they had just had a race that was “conspiring” against them .
Although this year’s championship witnessed a love fest between Alonso and his new Formula 1 team, Aston Martin, the atmosphere soured in Singapore as the Spaniard struggled to break into the top lieutenant
The frustrated Spaniard let the team know his feelings on the radio: “This is undriveable!”
Singapore has seen the first signs of a disconnect from Fernando Alonso
They were the first signs of discontent in a season in which the two-time World Champion took seven podiums and finished better than the others in the Drivers’ Championship, in third place. At least he did it until Singapore.
Last of the riders classified in 15th place, 90 years after race winner Carlos Sainz, Alonso now trails Lewis Hamilton by 10 points in the standings.
De la Rosa reminded his compatriot that all is not lost, there are better races and better results to come.
“We expected to be more competitive, but above all we lacked a bit of pace. It was an unfortunate weekend for many reasons. I don’t want to make excuses,” he told the F1 Nation podcast.
“We had a terrible shunt, Lance [Stroll] he is recovering, but it was also hard for the team.
“Then, during the race itself, there was one thing after another that conspired against us: arguing with Checo, overheating the tires, then we got the penalty, we had a bad pit stop.
“I don’t think we were that far away. If everything had gone as planned, we would have finished higher in the rankings. But you know, this is car racing and you have to have perfect weekends if you want to finish in the top six.”
He added: “This is Formula 1. It’s tough and there will always be bad weekends.
“It’s really important to learn from all this and go to Suzuka with the lessons learned and optimistic again.
“Let’s not forget that we have already achieved seven podiums, so we definitely have a much more competitive car than what we showed this week.”
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Can McLaren catch Aston Martin before the end of the season?
With Lando Norris second for McLaren and Oscar Piastri seventh, McLaren closed the gap to Aston Martin to 78 points with seven races remaining.
The Woking team brought their second major update of the season to the Marina Bay circuit and, like their Austrian updates, they proved spot on.
De la Rosa, although impressed with McLaren’s progress, says Aston Martin is not out of the fight.
“It just shows that they have a strong team and that they are making the right changes, that the pace of development is very good,” he said of McLaren’s upgrade.
“But I think everyone is really keeping pace. I mean, we’re all trying our best to be there.
“And McLaren at the moment have brought so many upgrades, like nine different upgrades into the car for this race. So they just showed that they are doing a great job and that they have a great technical team behind them.
“But this is a long journey and I think the other teams will be able to catch up too.”
Asked whether McLaren will be able to catch up with Aston Martin, he replied: “We’ll see. We are also on the road and have development throughout the year.
“We won’t give up and we will defend as much as possible and hopefully we are at the point where we can also attack.
“So we’ll see because there are a lot of different types of tracks coming up and we’re on a development program as well.”
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The article by Fernando Alonso who recalls having a ‘competitive car’ after the first signs of discontent appeared for the first time on Planetf1.com.