Aston Martin boss Mike Krack has revealed that Fernando Alonso’s race was sacrificed to help Lance Stroll’s points hopes in Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The Silverstone-based squad endured a tough weekend that saw both cars line up outside the top 10 on the grid, with Stroll situated in 13th and Alonso in the pit lane.
Alonso had crashed in FP3 and qualified with the slowest time in Q1, prompting Aston Martin to break parc ferme regulations to make tweaks to his car’s suspension.
With Alonso gambling on Softs at the start and pitting on the seventh lap, Aston’s rivals covered that stop and enabled Stroll to stretch out a vital 38-lap opening stint.
The Canadian would emerge with fresher rubber than the drivers ahead and he overtook Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda to rise into ninth place, seizing two points.
“We leave Imola with two important points following a strong drive by Lance and excellent team strategy,” said Krack.
“Lance made his one-stop race work with a long first stint, while Fernando’s early pit stop on lap eight helped draw several cars in for early stops.
“Lance was then able to make strong overtakes into Turn 1 on Hülkenberg and Tsunoda to secure P9.
“It was not easy to overtake, so it was great to watch Lance making those moves.
“It was always going to be difficult for Fernando to progress to the points after the difficult Qualifying, but he played the team game perfectly.
“The Imola weekend showed that we are still not competitive enough. Our focus is on extracting the full potential of the AMR24 for the races to come, starting next week in Monaco.”
With overtaking options limited at Imola, set-up changes and an alternate strategic avenue saw Alonso conduct an impromptu test session to gather data on updates.
Aston Martin’s latest upgrades have thus far failed to elevate its standings as the fifth-fastest team and placed it at risk from midfield competitors behind such as RB.
“It was a difficult day and weekend in general for us,” Alonso reflected.
“We started from the pit lane and changed a few things on the setup of the car. It meant that we could gather a lot of data which we need to analyse over the next couple of days.
“We opted for the Soft tyres at the start of the race and we were hoping for a Safety Car to change things up.
“When nothing happened ahead of us, we looked to try a few different compounds out and essentially used it as a bit of a test session.
“We will need to regroup and put ourselves in the best position in Monaco.”
With overtaking even more restrictive at Monaco, Alonso acknowledged how important it is to return back to his usual one-lap exploits following his Imola struggles.
“Qualifying dictates everything here [Imola],” he said. “It will be the same in Monaco so we need to do that perfect Saturday that obviously makes things easier for Sunday.”
