Fernando Alonso was notably critical of his own team following the British Grand Prix. The Spaniard described his race as ‘disappointing’ and criticized the strategic choices of Aston Martin, despite ultimately finishing ninth and thus scoring points. In a chaotic race, marked by retirements, safety cars, and particularly heavy rainfall, Alonso had hoped for more.
The two-time world champion started the race from a promising seventh place, but fell back to P9 after a messy afternoon. Teammate Lance Stroll, on the other hand, had a stronger race. The Canadian started seventeenth, took full advantage of an early tyre change to the soft compound, and ultimately finished seventh. It was the first time this season that Aston Martin finished with both cars in the points.
For Alonso, however, the result felt like a missed opportunity. During the race, he vented his frustrations over the radio: “Are we just losing places for fun?” he snapped at his race engineer. “It’s strange how we never get it right with me.” After the race, Alonso further explained his feelings. “Honestly, it was quite a disappointing race for us,” he sighed to the press in Silverstone. “We started at P7 and finished at P9. It feels like we missed an opportunity to score more points. We just got it wrong today – a huge blunder in strategy. But unfortunately, that can happen in a chaotic race.”
Next Time Will Be Better
The decision to switch to medium tires early on a drying track proved to be disadvantageous. Alonso lost a lot of time as he had to drive cautiously on the relatively wet asphalt. Other drivers timed their pit stops better and easily overtook him. However, the Spanish star remains hopeful: “Last week we made the right choice with a one-stop in Austria and probably scored more points than we deserved,” he recalled. “Today we were just unlucky. Hopefully, we’ll have changing conditions again in the next race, and we’ll handle it better.”
Lance Stroll, who scored six points with his seventh place, was satisfied with the team’s strategy after the race, although he also saw room for improvement. “The team made some good decisions and overall achieved a good result,” he responded calmly. “However, I had a lot of trouble with tire wear, especially in the final phase. Nico Hülkenberg clearly had more grip, so given the circumstances, we got the maximum out of it.”
