2023-07-14 08:01:49
The last few races have not been good for Fernando Alonso and Silverstone was yet another disappointment after a brilliant start to the season. The British GP did not work well for Fernando Alonso’s AMR23, despite the fact that the rider once again demonstrated his quality behind the wheel. With a slow pace throughout the weekend, Alonso’s only option was to score points, something that was not clear before the race. Even so, the Asturian driver predicts better coming weeks and has made it known to the rest of the Formula 1 grid. After seventh place at Silverstone, home of the Aston Martin team, Fernando Alonso has made quite a declaration of intent for the next races. The Hungarian GP and the Belgian GP are marked in red for the driver who wants to return to the level of the start of the season before the month-long break in August. “Now better weekends are coming, don’t worry,” says Fernando Alonso.
And to achieve his goal, the Asturian works tirelessly together with the engineers to try to give the car the desired pace. In this sense, Tom McCullough has revealed the time that Fernando Alonso has spent at the Aston Martin factory since the end of the race in Austria: “On Sunday night he showed up here. Between that day and Silverstone he has been at the factory every the days”. A motivation that has not waned after the disappointment of the British GP. Alonso, who is still determined to get his 33rd title in the F1 World Championship, did not miss the factory on Monday. “On Monday morning he was in the simulator and in the afternoon he went to the design offices of the new factory, which he had not yet had the opportunity to see. And on Tuesday, he used the simulator again,” he revealed. McCullough in a statement to ‘Motorsport-Total’.
However, despite his obsession with improving the performance of his AMR23, the driver has received a new jug of cold water from McCullough himself who has admitted that there will be no improvements in the next two races. “We’re going to go to the next couple of races with the car we have, but then we’ll bring the things that are there as soon as we can, and that will make the car faster. We still have a lot of updates, so we’ll continue to do that,” he said.
“We have seen the strengths of the team in the first races, but all the teams have been working on the efficiency of the wind tunnel, and that is where the path of development of the car will go. At the end of the day, it is about being ready,” admits McCullough. Therefore, the development work carried out by Aston Martin in recent weeks will begin to be reflected in the AMR23 from the Dutch Grand Prix, which takes place on the last weekend of August. Instead, at the Hungaroring and Spa-Francorchamps races, the car will remain unchanged.
Honda warns about Alonso’s future
But this has not been the only suit for Fernando who has seen how his continuity in the green team is once again in question. The veteran Spanish driver is a fundamental pillar for Aston Martin and not only at a sporting level. It is true that he accumulates 75% of his points in the Constructors’ World Championship, but his coldness and his experience are two of the factors that make him much greater than a two-time world champion driver and with his talent in the cockpit. So much so that the British team have already raised on several occasions the possibility of his continuity beyond 2026, something that even Max Verstappen himself sees as possible given the Asturian’s performance.
However, Honda does not get along very well with Fernando Alonso and issues a warning to sailors. The Japanese brand was constantly criticized and heavily attacked by Alonso when the Asturian driver was at McLaren. The engine was not working and was very unreliable. “GP2 engine, GP2 engine” (GP2 engine), bellowed, fed up and with good reason, Fernando Alonso, in 2015 in one of the most famous radio messages in the history of F1. He elongated it with an ‘Argggg’, which further highlighted his discontent after the constant ridicule from Honda. And now history could repeat itself after confirming the arrival of the Japanese company.
The relationship between the two is not good and from Honda it is clear who his replacement will be. Koji Watanabe, president of Honda Racing Corporation, insists on which would be his favorite driver to occupy one of the Aston Martin seats in 2026. Since they are Japanese, his bet would be Yuki Tsunoda, currently an Alpha Tauri driver. “Tsunoda is originally from our school and in Formula 1 he is doing very well. We are very happy to see him succeed,” Watanabe said. Thus, Honda is betting on Tsunoda so that he will be Lance Stroll’s partner at Aston Martin in 2026, that he is the son of the president and has the seat secured.
Honda will be a reality in the team in 2026 but Alonso is not so clear.
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