Fernando Alonso has reared its head again and is beginning to see the light at the end of a long tunnel that it is going through this season with its Aston Martin. He AMR24 He has not increased his performance, that is clear, but the Spanish driver is still as in his best days in terms of level, or even better. That is why on those circuits where his car can give a small plus due to its characteristics, the Spaniard appears there to shine in the shadows, as he did this weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix of Formula 1.
As far as possible, Alonso dominated the route of Baku both in training and in qualifying and, above all, in the race this Sunday. In it he achieved a very hard-fought and creditable sixth place, his best result since the Canadian GPwhich was played a whopping 99 days ago, that is, three months. That period of time, which includes the three-week summer break, has been a real ordeal for the Oviedowho has been left without points in four rounds and in the rest the best that his car has offered him were two eighth places in Silverstone and Spa.
These results could not even be considered glimpses of improvement by Aston Martin, but rather driving taken to the extreme in terms of perfection by the interim driver of the green car. Both those and the one in Baku and also the one in monza They have been highly valued even by Alonso himself, who cares a little less than his team that those enormous performances are going to fall into oblivion by the vast majority.
The team leader, Mike Krackstill has a burden, which is Lance Stroll. The Canadian was again left without points in a race in which his teammate was sixth, leaving Aston Martin blank for the eleventh time in this World Championship, the fourth in a row. That is why the Luxembourger limited himself to analyzing the Asturian’s performance, stating that he considers it “unfair” that this type of invisible performance is not sufficiently valued.
Aston Martin praises Alonso’s invisible driving
«It’s very unfair to be honest because you have to go down to like sixth place to see his name, but if you look at the classification and the race I don’t think the car was really in that position, so we made the most of the good position of out, but then you also have to take it home because you have very fast cars around you,” said a realistic Krack.
The positive note of the weekend in Baku beyond an unreal sixth position (he was going to be eighth if the accident did not occur on the penultimate lap between Carlos Sainz and Czech Perez)? That Alonso has regained his smile in his happiest week of the last 14 since that June 9 when he ran on the Canadian track of Gilles Villeneuve.
Newey’s week and hope with Austin
Seven days that began with the announcement of the signing of Adrian Newey last Tuesday, a presentation in which he could be seen very happy alongside the British engineer, and which continued with a harvest of good feelings personally for the Asturian, who is at an immense level.
Alonso only has to wait for the performance to finally arrive and continue confirming on the track that what is on his side will not be lacking. That is in the long term, but in the short term you can only hope with the latest package of improvements that Aston Martin will bring to austin and that will not only be key for the last six dates on the calendar, but also for the development of the 2025 car.
