Fernando Alonso has downplayed the significance of Aston Martin’s update package for the Formula 1 US GP and suggested that new parts won’t be a “game changer” for any team.
The Spaniard suggested that at this stage of the season it will be hard for any teams to find significant performance with the latest upgrades.
Aston’s Austin package includes a revised floor, and is seen as in part as a preview of the direction that the team is taking for 2025.
“I don’t think expectations can be too high,” he said. “We have some new parts, but I don’t think that it will change the full picture.
“I think this part of the championship, the upgrades are quite small. I think all of them are just also in line to what the 2025 car is looking at the tunnel. So it’s more a half-test, half-performance, introduction.
“And for us, it’s important as keeping the good understanding of the car that I think we started to have after Budapest, and that’s probably the main target for this weekend, try to have a good correlation, and see that all the new parts are doing what we expect from them.
“In terms of performance and positions in qualifying of the race, I don’t think that is going to be a game changer for anybody.”
Asked by formu1a.uno how vital it would be to hit the ground running he said: “It’s going to be important.
“Sprint weekends are obviously a little bit more challenging, because you cannot really optimise things, and especially when you bring new parts to the car or something, then you have only that that shot in FP1, and then you commit at least for half of the weekend this year.
“But yeah, starting with the right feeling and confidence in the car will be important. That’s why today’s preparation and meetings are a bit more delicate than any other weekend, trying to get it everything right.”
Alonso added: “After Budapest, we understood some of the directions that we took in the past, and why it was not correlated properly on track, and that package was a good sign on what we wanted to achieve, and this is just a continuation of that.
“So I think we are reasonably optimistic that correlation will be good, and tomorrow we will see what we want to see.
“But in terms of performance, as I said, when you are at this part of the championship, all the gains are very marginal. All the other teams, they are bringing as well.
“So even if you bring one tenth, half a tenth, the other ones, they are bringing half a tenth, one tenth, and you keep in the same position. So I think it’s going to be the case of this weekend.”
Alonso agreed that there is an opportunity for Aston to benefit by getting it right in FP1 while other teams struggle.
“For sure, I think more than the specifics of the upgrades, I think it’s going to be more important to get it right straight away. Because if you bring a performance package of one-tenth and you get it wrong, maybe you lose two compared the previous race.
“And if you bring half a tenth and you exploit everything of that half a tenth, maybe it becomes one-tenth when you put it on track.
“So the difference can be quite big if you get it right or wrong. And we have only one session. So it’s one of those FP1s that you want everything clean.
“Last year, remember, we went out of Q1 because we had a very messy FP1, brake problems. We had fire on the brakes. Lance did I think one installation lap in the whole FP1, I did eight laps, and that compromised the whole weekend. So this is a big focus into this year’s free practice.”
