Aston Martin are ‘motived’ and ‘determined’ to improve after Australia says Alonso

Fernando Alonso rolled back the years in the opening Grand Prix of the season, jumping from P17 on the grid to be 10th on the first lap as he showed the same lightning reflexes that have been the hallmark of his long F1 career – later calling the start the “best part” of his weekend.

Unfortunately he did not have the machinery with which to compete in Australia and fell back down the order on the soft tyre, before initially retiring the car on Lap 14. While the Spaniard did return to the race briefly to get more mileage under his belt, he then retired a second time.

With Aston Martin open about their issues in the run up to the Australian Grand Prix, the race was more about data gathering for the team with a view to improving the situation for China. But nonetheless, there were positives to take according to Alonso.

“That was the best part of the race for sure, the start and then we fall back a little to our natural position, and then we have an alarm on the car,” he explained.

“We have to stop the car once, I think we cleared the alarm, we had another problem, we had to retire the car for a second time so I think it was a little on/off today. But we probably collect good data for the team.

“We did the formation lap, start, pit stops, all these – it sounds normal things for everybody but for us it’s new, as we never got to 7pm in Bahrain [at testing] when everyone was practicing the starts. So, for us to be able to run with both cars, and do all these kind of things for sure is a very good day for the learning.”

The difficulties for Aston Martin also impacted Lance Stroll with the Canadian forced to sit out both FP3 and Qualifying with an ICE issue, before being given permission by the stewards to race. But despite these difficulties, Alonso remains optimistic for the next race.

“Everybody is convinced, is motivated, is determined to improve the situation and this weekend, we saw a kind of progress from where we arrived from Bahrain to here. So hopefully China, another step,” he added.

As for Stroll, he too spent some of the Grand Prix in the pits but was able to unretire the car and make it to the flag, albeit several laps down. He completed 43 laps in the end, far more than looked possible earlier in the weekend.

“It was like a practice session for us, just getting laps,” Stroll explained. “We came back in the box, we tried some different things to solve some of the issues we had this weekend.

"At least we got out, did some laps. Hopefully we can be in a better position for China.”