The British GP was a race of attrition. While some drivers had to retire early, Aston Martin’s drivers held on through one of the toughest races to a lot of drivers.
Afterwards, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll spoke to the media, reflecting on their challenging race.
Alonso frustrated after strategy misfire at Silverstone: Hopes for redemption in Spa
Alonso admitted he was upset with his result as he couldn’t improve any further after qualifying for a solid position. The Spaniard revealed that he was displeased with the team’s strategy throughout the race.
“Yeah, quite a disappointing race, to be honest, for us. We started in P7, finished in P9… you know, it feels like we lost an opportunity to score more points. But, yeah, we got it wrong today. Very wrong, the strategy. And, you know, these things can happen in a messy race.”
In Austria Alonso served a stunning performance with the effective one-stop strategy and strong tyre management. He finished P7, improving from P11.
“Last week, it was a very good strategy. One stop in Austria allowed us to score more points than what we deserved, probably. And today, you know, we were a little bit unlucky.
So, hopefully, next race, with an opportunity on mixed conditions, we’ll get it right.”
The next racing weekend is in Spa, Belgium. In the short break the teams can reflect on their past mistakes and areas for improvement.
“Yeah, let’s see. You know, try to learn. Always, when there are these tricky conditions, we cannot get it right.
“At least on my side of the garage, we try to improve.”
Tyre degradation, the issue of the race
Lance Stroll was very close to finish on podium on Sunday. He has been off the podium since 2020. At Sunday’s race, the drivers had to struggle with the heavy rain. The Canadian admitted that such weather conditions have a tremendous impact on the quality of the tyres, and a team needs to be prepared.
“Yeah, good strategy calls, which was good, but just very slow today and you know, chewing through tyres like crazy, lots of degradation. So yeah, that was not good.”
While his opponents fought with the rain, Stroll performed even better in the sudden weather conditions, improving to P3 for a part of the race. Unfortunally, the grip didn’t stay perfect throughout the race and he fell back, finishing P7. The quality of the tyres fading was the main issue.
“Yeah, just loads of degradation on all the tyres. On the soft tyre also at the end, just loads of degradation and yeah, we can’t really hold the pace with that kind of deck.”
With finishing in P7 and P9 Aston Martin left the British GP with 8 points for the constructors’ championship. In the short break, Stroll explained, Aston Martin will work on the cars.
“Yeah, I mean, I think the cars needs a lot of work for sure. I think we’re still very slow, but yeah, just good strategy calls, which was points, but overall the car was very difficult and not so quick.”
