Alonso expects more “pain” in final races as Aston Martin are slowest in Las Vegas · RaceFans

Aston Martin’s downward spiral is continuing at the Las Vegas Grand Prix where they are Formula 1’s slowest team for the first time this year.

While all of their rivals got at least one car out of Q1, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll failed to get their AMR24s into Q2. Their quickest lap time was seven tenths of a second slower than they managed at the same track last year.

“It was tough, but no surprise,” Alonso admitted. “We’ve been struggling the last four or five months with the performance of the car and sometimes we managed to make some progress in Q1, sometimes we don’t. Today, unfortunately, we didn’t.”

Aston Martin began last season in great shape, Alonso taking six podium finishes from the first eight grands prix. However they have slipped back since then, and prior to this weekend’s race announced technical director Dan Fallows had parted company with the team.

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Alonso sees little prospect for any improvement in the team’s performance tomorrow or over the remaining rounds at Losail and Yas Marina. “It’s a tough race in front of us,” he said. “We are 17th and 20th and we want to improve, but I think this year it’s unlikely.

“There’s only three races left, the car will be the same. So our main focus is on next year, unfortunately, and this year we have to accept that there’s going to be some some pain in the last three races.”

Aston Martin haven’t scored a point in the last three rounds. Even if that situation continues until the end of the year, their 37-point advantage over Alpine is likely to hold, unless their rivals achieve another windfall result similar to the one they enjoyed in Brazil.

Alonso says the team will have to be creative in its approach to races in the meantime in order to stand a chance of collecting points.

“There’s not much to learn, but you always learn,” he said. “You start at the back and you can gamble on some of the decisions you make: some of the strategy, tyre choices, all these kinds of things. For sure we will be a little bit not in a normal strategy.

“But apart from that, I think to get some points you need a bit of luck from the cars in front of you because generally they are faster than you. So we need some DNF or something. So we remain positive but as I said in the next three races, it will be painful.”

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