Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso scored his first points of the season at his home race in Spain, but is still frustrated
Ninth place in the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix was a kind of relief for Fernando Alonso. He said he was “naturally happy about the points” – and about not having to answer any more questions about them for the rest of the season. “It just takes some pressure off everyone involved in the team,” said Alonso. “We’re now trying to bring some consistency to our performance.”
Aston Martin driver Alonso has already achieved this in qualifying, starting from the top 10 in his last three races. “Now we’ve got our first points. So if we can build something where we’re consistently in the top ten on Saturdays and Sundays, that will help the whole team,” said Alonso.
Aston Martin is under pressure after Sauber scored “a lot of points” in Barcelona with Nico Hülkenberg’s fifth place: “It’s imperative for us to score points every weekend or at least every other weekend,” explains Alonso. “We have to raise the level.”
Alonso feels lost on the straights
This was once again made clear by the race in Spain, as Alonso had “probably hoped for a little more” from the ninth Grand Prix of the year. He says: “I felt more competitive in qualifying than in the race. We had significant problems with front tire degradation—the left front tire was gone after seven laps.”
The tire situation explains his excursion into the gravel trap, but not the weakness of the Aston Martin AMR25 on the straights. “We lacked top speed,” said Alonso, appearing to criticize power unit supplier Mercedes when he added: “We lose a lot on the straights. I didn’t manage a single overtaking maneuver with DRS.”
Alonso emphasized that he had to get creative in Spain: “All the overtaking maneuvers took place on the outside of Turn 3, which is not a normal place to overtake, but we have to come up with maneuvers like that. In Imola, I also made three overtakes coming out of Turn 7 in the final laps.”
Criticism of Mercedes again?
But this cannot remain a permanent state of affairs: “We have to solve this situation and start overtaking on the straights with DRS like everyone else,” says Alonso. Because the top speed weakness “only affects us” – which follows on from Alonso’s criticism of Mercedes in Monaco, when Alonso claimed that his engine had been “poorly prepared.”
In Barcelona, however, Aston Martin simply used unfavorable rear wing settings. “We have to get that under control,” says operations director Mike Krack. “We have to look at exactly how we got there, because we were among the slowest on the straights. That’s why we have to analyze exactly how we selected the rear wing. Because that makes life very difficult for the drivers. They have to look more in the rear-view mirror than ahead.“
Alonso sums up the situation as follows: ”We’re pretty competitive on Saturdays, but on Sundays we take a step backwards.“ At least Aston Martin knows ”exactly what’s going on,” says the two-time world champion.
