Fernando Alonso has given a frank assessment of his Aston Martin team’s performance in the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, and has called on the team to talk less and deliver more.
Alonso finished a disappointing 12th in his home race after only qualifying in 11th and pulled no punches in his post-race verdict saying the team “did not deserve to score any point”.
It comes after a poor run for the two-time Formula 1 world champion where he has only finished inside the points in one of the last four races.
When asked about the result in Barcelona, he said: “I am a little bit disappointed because we didn’t score any point.
“We deserved not to score any point because we didn’t have the pace the whole weekend.
“In the race, it was extremely difficult. When you slide so much in the corners, also you kill the tyres. So you have two problems.
“You don’t have the pace, plus you have a lot of degradation. So all in all, it has been a very long race for us. We need to get better for us.”
Alonso pointed his finger at a lack of downforce on the AMR24 and warned that there will be more pain to come in Austria and Silverstone, adding that the team has to stop making claims of improvements and start actually showing them on track.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team, waves to fans
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
He said: “It is frustrating but there’s nothing you can do now so you start thinking in Austria immediately when you see the chequered flag and what you can do differently.
“But I think it’s gonna be painful as well because it has some characteristics of Barcelona, with the long corners.
“It’s going to be another tough weekend, also in Silverstone, arguably.
“We cannot get too frustrated. It’s time to work harder, to talk less, to deliver more. It’s what we want to do.”
A fundamental flaw is Aston Martin’s failure to make incremental gains with each set up upgrade and Alonso says that needs to change.
He said: “I’m looking forward, but we’ve been upgrading the car a lot and we didn’t deliver the results.
“So now it’s also a matter of whatever we bring to the track, it does deliver what we expect and we start getting better and better.
“So as I said, we need to work hard, get better every race, but without too much talking or promising.”
When asked why the team has got it wrong and the upgrades are not working, he added: “I’m a driver, not a technician”.