F1 News: Alonso may leave because Aston Martin car too slow

(GMM) Aston Martin is already hard at work to rapidly improve its 2024 car and convince Fernando Alonso to stay in 2025.

A somewhat disappointed Alonso, who is out of contract and linked with Mercedes or even Red Bull for 2025, admitted after Bahrain that Aston Martin has once again settled behind the top four teams in the new F1 pecking order.

He’s now hopeful Aston Martin has managed to up its game in terms of developing the car during the season.

“We completely changed the philosophy on how to approach the season,” he is quoted as saying by Diario AS. “We have a good starting point but we expect continued progress throughout the season.

“Last year we put everything on the table from the beginning but then we were not able to react to the strong pace of the top teams.”

Team boss Mike Krack reveals that the first small upgrades for the 2024 car will be debuted this weekend, in Saudi Arabia.

“We will have some small updates to improve the car and we hope to be able to get closer,” he is quoted by Diario Sport, “and then we will have to see if Fernando can do another lap like in qualifying.”

Krack admits Aston Martin has work to do to be as good at in-season development as top teams like Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and even McLaren.

“Cars never stay the same from one race to the next,” he insisted. “I think the big teams are always modifying and updating, trying to eliminate eaknesses as quickly as possible. We’ll try to do the same.”

He is quoted by Marca sports newspaper as confirming Alonso’s claim that the entire “philosophy for evolutions” has been changed “so that they arrive continuously throughout the year, instead of doing everything at the beginning like in 2023”.