After an exceptional and unexpected qualifying result, Fernando Alonso finished the Bahrain Grand Prix in P9, struggling to keep up with Mercedes and McLaren’s pace.
The Spaniard felt great after his strong result in qualifying, which saw him put his Aston Martin in P6. However, he knew that the team’s real position in the race wouldn’t be so far ahead. At the end of the GP, both Aston Martins managed to get points, but were only in P9 and P10.
“Today I think is exactly what we expected,” Alonso said. “Our simulations were saying that we were around P9 with not much fight in front of us, the top four teams a little bit with too much ahead, and with a comfortable gap behind.
“And it’s exactly like that. I think I had [Oscar Piastri’s] McLaren 18 seconds ahead and the Sauber [of Zhou Guanyu in 11th] 28 seconds behind. So, we were in the middle of no one’s race.”
Alonso admitted that the team needs to work on race pace simulations, as that is something Aston Martin is lacking right now. Nonetheless, the two-time world champion acknowledged that improvements were made during winter, so the direction is right.
“We are lacking pace for sure. Yesterday’s laps are something to study – why we were so fast. So, I think the race was normal. What was exceptional was yesterday’s lap,” he explained.
“[The car] is better. We did improve the top speed, we did improve the fast corners. Obviously, we made some sacrifices in the low-speed stuff.”