Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin need to accept they are no longer competing for points after losing ground to their rivals in recent races.
Two weeks after the team scored its best result of the season in Canada, Alonso and team mate Lance Stroll finished 12th and 14th respectively in Spain.
“We didn’t have the pace,” said Alonso. “I think Barcelona, at the end, it puts you in the pace order. There is nothing to hide, eventually over 66 laps you end up in the position you deserve.
“Today we are P12 and this is the maximum. The car was not great the whole weekend, we confirmed it in the race as well a lot of sliding, especially the high-speed corners, which obviously kills the tyres so you get into a bad spiral. In the end, a tough weekend.”
Alonso, who is ninth in the drivers’ championship, was happy with his qualifying performance on Saturday after taking 10th on the grid, which he said was better than he expected. However he was unable to prevent Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg finishing ahead of him in the race, despite the latter being given a five-second time penalty.
This weekend’s race is the first of three events on consecutive weekends at circuits with a similar range of mid-to-high speed corners. Aston Martin brought some updates for its car this weekend but Alonso says the team must make a bigger step forwards soon.
“I think it’s going to be difficult,” he said. “We cannot lie to ourselves, it’s where we are at the moment. We are not in a position to score points.
“We have to make a significant step forwards, hopefully in the next few races. I think in Austria, in five days time, there is not much coming to Spielberg, and Silverstone, so hopefully in Hungary or later we will have a step that helps us in terms of performance. Now, we are a little bit down.”
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2024 Spanish Grand Prix
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