Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso have been hoping to relaunch their campaign to beat Ferrari and McLaren in the constructors championship, but based on today's performance in qualifying for the Japanese GP that's not looking very likely.
The team started the season off with a string of strong results, including six podium finishes for Alonso. But after that the AMR23 seemed to lose performance, with the team blaming a wrong choice in development direction.
Aston hoped it had fixed things over the summer break when Alonso was second in the Dutch GP last month. But since then the squad has continued to struggle, Alonso finishing outside the points for the first time this year in Singapore.
Qualifying results have also tapered off, but nonetheless Alonso has continued to make it through to the final round for a top ten spot on the grid every weekend- an achievement that he thinks should get more recognition.
“It was difficult for us to find any more pace today. I extracted the maximum from my laps and I'm happy to keep my run of Q3 appearances going," he said.
"Even on difficult days we still manage to be in Q3 thanks to very good laps," he pointed out to the media in the paddock in Suzuka. "This type of qualifying won't get unnoticed for many people, but I’m very proud.”
Alonso insisted that he was still driving at the same level as he had been at the start of 2023. “{I'm the] same throughout the season, but at the beginning of the year I was fighting for nine or ten points while now [it's] four or five.
"From track to track, the performance levels keep changing – on paper, we knew it would be challenging today," said Alonso, comparing it to the recent blip in performance by championship leader Max Verstappen.
“It’s like Max: he didn’t wake up this weekend and he’s driving back on the top while he was just sleeping in Singapore," he added. "He was P11 there, and he was the best of all of us and he is on pole today - and he’s still the best."
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack admitted that it had been a tough session on Saturday. "We did not have enough performance to qualify higher. However, Fernando maintains his consecutive streak of Q3 appearances this year.
"We feel we are in good shape for tomorrow," he insisted. "Tyre degradation is likely to play a key role in this race, and we have kept one eye on our tyre allocation throughout practice.
"We will give it everything we’ve got, and aim to score points tomorrow.”
© Aston Martin
Alonso's team mate Lance Stroll will face an even bigger challenge tomorrow after missing the first cut in qualifying, leaving him starting tomorrow's race from P17.
"Lance’s Q1 run plan was disrupted by the mid-session red flag," Krack explained. "He was unlucky to miss the cut after posting a lap just shy of Fernando."
“It was a good effort in a tough qualifying session," argued Stroll, who missed last week's Singapore GP recovering from a heavy accident in qualifying the day before.
"We just didn't have the pace in the car that we ultimately needed," he said of today's effort. "It’s not been handling as well as we’d like around here, and I lost a couple of tenths coming out of the last corner.
"That makes all the difference when the field is as tight as it is," he noted. "We can still recover a few positions tomorrow and have a good race.”
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