Fernando Alonso He had a weekend to forget at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prixconcluding Sunday's race in 19th position. His only objective now was to recover in the Monaco Grand Prix, so he did not hesitate to send a serious warning to Aston Martin to avoid a new fiasco. Their complaints forced the green team to back down and those from Silverstone announced that they would return to a piece prior to Imola. The engineers assured that it will give better balance on a track like this. But it was of no use and Alonso's ordeal was repeated for one more race.
Eleventh position for the Asturian on a circuit where last year he was second and where he did not achieve victory due to a failure in tire management by his team. Fernando, a specialist in Monaco, declared that this has been a “disappointing” weekend for him and his team. He also added that Aston Martin You must make important changes for Canada if you want to achieve positive results.
Fernando Alonso tries not to despair and send a message of encouragement for the rest of the season. “This is like the Tour de France, there are 24 stages. We are in the sprint stages, the flat stages. The mountain will arrive and we will hurry there.” it states. But the reality is that at Silverstone they have not quite found settings that take advantage of the performance of the car.
A key factor
And in that the wind tunnel is fundamental, something which McLaren has used very well that started ninth and suddenly became second and that, on the other hand, is weighing down Aston Martin and Mercedes.
The key to McLaren to make the difference lies in its own wind tunnel, a renovated facility inaugurated in October 2023 and that seems to be giving optimal performance in what is billed from there. The one from Mercedes, the same one that Aston Martin uses for rent, does not seem as updated as that of its direct rival and this is revealed by the German team itself, where they acknowledge that they have certain difficulties in achieving a good correlation between the tunnel data and the track.
The wind tunnel is an essential tool for a Formula 1 team, as it is the basis of all aerodynamic development. However, it is also very sensitive and must be perfectly calibrated to not return incorrect data. An operation that must also be carried out periodically. Along the history, Many Formula 1 teams have been plunged into a crisis of results as a result of a poorly calibrated wind tunnel. “Fundamentally, whatever we see in the tunnel does not correlate with what is happening on the track,” confessed Toto Wolff.
The problem is that Aston Martin will not have the solution to many of its problems available until 2025.
“We hope to be able to use it a little for the AMR25. Depending on how the commissioning goes, it will probably be the first car that we can have a significant impact on with this new wind tunnel. The goal of the wind tunnel is to be completed in August. We hope it will contribute to the 2025 car. Depending on how the commissioning goes and other aspects, it will probably be the first car on which the wind tunnel will have a significant impact, arriving in 2026.”, commented Dan Fallows, technical director of Aston Martin in statements collected by Motorsport.com.
Meanwhile, it seems that Fernando Alonso will have to continue dealing with the limitations and hope that Canada's changes and the planned improvement package for Barcelona will finally work.