Fernando Alonso was greatly satisfied with the strong P7 performance at the F1 Canadian GP. However, the Aston Martin driver still insists the team has more work to do in order to close the gap to the top teams.
The 2025 F1 season has been quite turbulent for Aston Martin. However, the team appears to be moving forward in the right direction. Fernando Alonso only scored his first points of the year at the Spanish GP, followed by another point finish in Canada. His teammate Lance Stroll appears to have the opposite trajectory as the beginning of the season went well for him, but the past couple of races have not been as strong. Stroll managed to secure 14 points for the team in the first few races of the season.
Work needed to close the gap to top teams
When asked about how pleased he was with the effort during the race, Alonso expressed joy while also revealing that more work is needed to get the team where they want to be.
“Quite happy, I think the car was good the whole weekend, not only the race. Actually, the race was probably our least strong point of the weekend. Thanks to the sixth position yesterday in qualifying we kept the pace at the beginning of the race. We opened a gap, that was a little bit our safety net for the pitstops and things like that. Good weekend. We executed well, and good points for the team.”
Later on, the question if whether the team’s performance could improve this year came up. The two-time World Champion admitted that there are still issues with the car that need to be solved, stating:
“It gives us a little bit more confidence to push but there are still some weaknesses in the car since the beginning that we’ve still not solved completely. Especially the race pace on Sunday we see the problems, so yeah lot of work to do. Today we led the midfield, but the top teams are still quite far away and we need to close that gap.”
The former World Champion has been adamant that the team is still working to maximise their performance and making adjustments to get the most out of the car.
Canadian GP result was maximum for the team
After the F1 Canadian GP, Alonso reflected on the performance of the team and pointed out their weaknesses that need work. According to him he noticed the competitiveness of the other teams during the race, and understood that Aston Martin needs to make some changes if they do not want to fall behind. The Spanish driver expressed:
“I think realistic of the pace, eight was maximum, we knew that eight would be maximum, and we were eight until Lando had a DNF and we gained seventh. When I saw Nico in front of Haas with 10 laps to go, I was like ‘wow’, he was very competitive. Sauber clearly made a step forward, so we need to keep the pace, if not, we will lose by the end of the season.”
Alonso sees Sunday as the weak point for Aston Martin
He continued on to explain that while there were not any extreme problems during the race, their pace on Sundays is still not where it needs to be.
“But at the same time, we are getting close to Haas, closer to Racing Bulls, and it is going to be a nice battle until Abu Dhabi. Overall, I was really happy with the car. I mean it didn’t have any big issues apart from excessive tyre deg but still Sunday pace is not quite there in the rhythm of the weekend.
“We are sometimes one or two tenths away from the top teams in qualifying and then we are one minute in the race, so definitely Sunday is still out weak point of the weekend, and we need to make some set-up work to put priority on Sunday in the next few races.”
With ten days to go until the next race weekend, Alonso will undoubtably be preparing to grab more points in Austria. Hopefully, the Aston Martin team can figure out the enigma of their race pace.
