24/06/2024
NEWS STORY
Following a tough home race, Fernando Alonso predicts further misery in Austria and Britain as he urges Aston Martin to "work harder" and "talk less".
While the Silverstone-based outfit's start to the season was nowhere near as strong as last year, it was okay, however since China the points have been few and far between, other than Canada where it benefitted from Ferrari's failure.
Despite its continued upgrade programme, Barcelona was a largely anonymous weekend for the team and its home driver.
"I am a little bit disappointed because we didn't score any point," replied the two-time world champion when asked about the weekend. "We deserved not to score any point because we didn't have the pace the whole weekend.
"In the race, it was extremely difficult," he continued. "When you slide so much in the corners, also you kill the tyres. So you have two problems. You don't have the pace, plus you have a lot of degradation.
"So all in all, it has been a very long race for us. We need to get better for us."
Throughout his career, the Spaniard has had a reputation for publicly criticising his teams when he felt they were falling short, and as Aston Martin insists that its upgrades are having an impact Alonso disagrees.
"It is frustrating but there's nothing you can do now so you start thinking in Austria immediately when you see the chequered flag and what you can do differently.
"But I think it's gonna be painful as well because it has some characteristics of Barcelona, with the long corners. It's going to be another tough weekend, also in Silverstone, arguably.
"We cannot get too frustrated. It's time to work harder, to talk less, to deliver more. It's what we want to do."
Contrary to what the team is saying, Alonso insists that the upgrades are not having the desired effect.
"I'm looking forward, but we've been upgrading the car a lot and we didn't deliver the results. So now it's also a matter of whatever we bring to the track, it does deliver what we expect and we start getting better and better.
"So as I said, we need to work hard, get better every race, but without too much talking or promising."
Asked where the upgrades are failing, he replied: "I'm a driver, not a technician".
And if that's not a clear "come save us" call to Adrian Newey, we don't know what is.