Aston Martin was well aware that Monza would not play in favor of the AMR23, which has characteristics that, undoubtedly, do not go well with those of the Brianza track. This was especially reflected in qualifying, with Fernando Alonso only collecting a tenth place, one of the “worst” results on the flying lap for the Spaniard during the course of the season, which confirms how much the English car struggled in Italy.
Last year, Aston Martin presented itself with an extremely aggressive rear wing, for very low downforce, while this year it has opted for a more traditional solution, aware that it would probably have also unbalanced the car excessively.
In the race, the Spaniard was unable to significantly improve his situation, finishing in ninth place. During the race, the difficulties in managing the rear of the single-seater emerged in particular, especially in the faster corners, with big oversteers and extreme controls in the two Lesmos when they were in traffic.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing AMR23
Photo by: Paul Belletti
“Obviously we have to learn a lot of lessons from this race. We weren’t competitive, so that’s the main objective for us, to try to understand in this type of circuit what we have to do differently in the future, even next year when we come here. On the there’s not much to say, we were slow from start to finish and it wasn’t possible to fight to get higher. So let’s take those points, but hopefully there are many lessons.”
Despite a rather disappointing race in terms of pace and result, Alonso at least extended his streak of placings in the points, maintaining a lead of six lengths over Lewis Hamilton in the standings. A gap which, after a sparkling start to the season with numerous podiums, saw the Spaniard having to deal with the growth of his rivals and a car which, net of the second place at Zandvoort, saw a drop in performance. A situation that the Oviedo driver described as frustrating: “It’s frustrating because it was a very demanding race from a mental and physical point of view to manage a car which, with very low grip, was very difficult to drive. For me it was one of the most difficult races of the year”.
“And it’s the worst result, so it will be an anonymous race and no one will remember it. But I’ll do it in my head, because it was a difficult race. But as I said, we hope to learn some good lessons from the car or from the data we’ve gathered in race and improve next time”.
Explaining what went wrong, he added: “I think the car and its efficiency are not up to par for this type of track, where the level of aerodynamic drag is very important, and it seems that this was our weak point. We know it. Now we have to improve and bring some ideas,” added Alonso. Already at the beginning of the year, in fact, this had proved to be one of the main limitations of the English car, so much so that it presented itself in Azerbaijan with a revised wing with which it was hoped to be able to take a step forward. However, as well as McLaren, grappling with similar difficulties, the team failed to fix the problem within months.
![Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23](https://cdn-9.motorsport.com/images/mgl/0qXZl4O6/s1000/fernando-alonso-aston-martin-a-1.jpg)
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23
Photo by: Erik Junius
Alonso admitted he was satisfied that he got the most out of the package he had in Italy. “I think we’re doing our job every Sunday. We get the most out of the car, sometimes unfortunately it’s ninth like today, sometimes it’s second like last week [a Zandvoort].
“We are not making mistakes. We make good strategies, good pit stops, without making big mistakes like some of our competitors, [come] they did at the beginning of the year. So we have a good gap in terms of points,” said Alonso, making a veiled reference to Ferrari, which lost several points at the start of the championship due to driver errors, reliability and strategy. Precisely at Monza, however, the Maranello team overtook Aston Martin in the constructors’ championship, climbing to third place.
“But yes, the situation is getting closer and even Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, I think, is ahead of us with this result. Let’s try to recover in Singapore.”
#Alonso #Monza #difficult #race #year #wont #forget