Fernando Alonso “at peace” with Aston Martin upgrade plan: We won't ‘waste money’ on small gains

Fernando Alonso agrees with Aston Martin’s plan to not deliver small upgrades on a frequent basis until it has solved its ongoing Honda engine and reliability issues, and can deliver big gains to move up the Formula 1 pecking order.

Aston Martin delivered no performance upgrades in Miami, contrasting to effectively all its rivals, as it focused its efforts on reliability and curing the engine vibration issues that plagued its Honda-powered car over the start of the new season.

Having solved the vibration problem in Miami, Aston’s next target is better integration and synchronisation of its gearbox, as both drivers suffered constant issues with upshifts and downshifts in Miami.

The Silverstone-based squad’s overall aim is to fix all its reliability issues in order to have consistent running to gain data, and then use this to plot its development path.

Added to that, Alonso backed Aston’s decision to not bring smaller upgrades until it can make a sizeable difference in performance – as well as establishing what areas actually need to be prioritised given the full potential of the Adrian Newey-penned car is yet to be fully understood.

“I'm at peace because I understand the situation,” Alonso said. “The team explained to me that if we bring one or two tenths every race, it doesn't change our position, we are P20 or P19 and the next car is one second in front.

“So, even if we bring two tenths every race, it doesn't change our position and it's a huge stress in the system, in the budget cap and things like that. Until we don't have one second and a half or two second improvement, it's better not to press the button in production because we waste money.”

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Sona Maleterova / Getty Images

Alonso confirmed Honda has fixed its engine vibrations with the changes made for Miami, and now the focus for the team switches to its gearbox and gear shifting.

“It was more the gearbox the whole weekend than the engine, so I don't know, the electronics, something,” he said after the Miami GP. “It was very weird on the downshifts and the upshifts, so not very well in control, so yeah, that's the fix number one for Canada.

“I think with all these heavy braking [zones] in Canada, we need to improve the gearbox behaviour at the moment.”

With Aston Martin seemingly set to battle Cadillac to avoid being bottom of the pile in F1 this season, Alonso conceded the team doesn’t expect to bring substantial performance-focused upgrades until after the summer break at the end of August.

“I think we will make steps on that reliability point of view, performance not, so we need to stick together with the team,” he explained. “It's going to be a very tough race [in Canada], it's going to feel repetitive, obviously we need to face media every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“It seems repetitive the message, we have no upgrades until after summer, so we don't need to come to Canada and what to expect in Canada, the same, what to expect in Austria, the same, so that's the thing that we need to manage, that frustration level from everybody in the team.

“But I think we are all relaxed, we are all committed to after summer having a better second half of the year and let's see if we can do that.”