Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin is still “lacking three-tenths” compared to McLaren and Mercedes despite progress in Formula 1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Alonso qualified a promising sixth in Bahrain but slipped back in the race to a distant ninth, claiming that he had overperformed the car’s potential over a single lap.
Although he produced another stellar effort to clinch fourth on the grid in Jeddah, the Spaniard had admitted he was “concerned” about Aston Martin’s long-run pace.
But while Alonso was delighted to secure a top-five race result in the sole-running AMR24, he proclaims its competitiveness on high fuel is behind its one-lap speed.
“Yeah, definitely happy,” he said. “Happy with the race result in front of both Mercedes, one McLaren and one Ferrari. It’s the maximum I think we can wish at the moment.
“We saw again in the race that we still missed 2 or 3 tenths comparing Mercedes and McLaren and maybe a little bit more comparing Red Bull and Ferrari.
“While in qualifying we seemed pretty close, so yeah, we need to keep working on the race pace.”
Alonso’s fears that he would tumble down the order like in Bahrain were heightened when Oscar Piastri pulled a move on his Aston Martin in the closing stages.
The two-time World Champion was then heard enquiring about “Plan B” over the team radio as he came under pressure from George Russell’s Mercedes behind.
Alonso conceded that his question came amid concerns over his rubber lasting in competitive shape following a pit stop on Lap 7 under the Safety Car period.
“It was stressful because I was pushing and Oscar was just pulling away and George was significantly faster behind, so I was thinking, OK, it’s 43 laps to the end after the Safety Car,” he recalled.
“In FP2 we normally do 9 or 10 laps on the long run, so to do 42 was, let’s say, an unknown territory in terms of tyre age.
“So, yeah, I was just making sure that the strategy still one to stop and we didn’t change the plan.”
Red Bull’s doublestack ensured Sergio Perez was held in his pit box as the traffic filtered through, but his eagerness saw him almost collide with Alonso in the fast lane.
“Yeah, I mean, it was close, Alonso said regarding the incident. “I mean, when nothing happens, it’s good. You know, the penalty is more than enough and it doesn’t change it.
“The problem is if for an unlucky situation you crash or you retire the car, it seems like 5 seconds is not enough, but today we were lucky and both cars kept racing and that was all fine.”
