Fernando Alonso insisted he is not frustrated by Aston Martin’s recent downturn in form after retiring again from the Mexican Grand Prix.
The team told him to retire from today’s race after his car lost pace early on. Alonso suspected he had picked up damage from debris left from the first corner collision between Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc.
“We felt immediately something wrong in the car,” Alonso told the official F1 website. “We were quite slow.”
Aston Martin told Alonso to let his team mate Lance Stroll by and as the race went on it became clear his situation wasn’t going to improve.
“We let Lance go as well at the beginning just to hope for a better result for the team,” said Alonso. “But we were slow in general in the race, but not only the race.
“I think the whole weekend has been very difficult for us. Sometimes you learn more things from the difficulties than from the celebrations. So hopefully it’s one of those times.”
Alonso has suffered a significant reversal in fortunes since the season began. He finished on the podium in five of the first six races, and until the Singapore Grand Prix had scored points in every round.
However he has taken just 13 points over the last five rounds as Aston Martin have been overhauled by their rivals. Despite that, he said he is still extremely pleased with their season.
“Obviously we would love to keep fighting for podiums, but we are not in that position, unfortunately,” he said. “But no, it’s not frustrating yet.
“This year has been an incredible season for us, so even if we DNF the remaining of the races, 2023 is still a good season. But hopefully we can revert this situation and we can finish on a high.”
