2025 Aston Martin | Aramco F1 Team

[SealTheRealDeal]

Was the team sand bagging or did it just take them exactly all of testing and all the free practices to dial in the car to where it went from hopeless backmarker to solid midfield car?

[Rikrikrik]

Aston was better than a lot of people expected, me included, but, everybody remember how good was AMR24 in qualy on first quarter of the last season, and, was a terrible disaster during the race. Aston has Cowel, Newey, new simulator, new wind tunnel online, a lot of stuff for improve that car this year, they need improve that car and not make the same poor development like 23-24, and even this, guys, this year will be amazing for championship. Everyone is squeezed under a ridiculous small margin of time

[Alo_Fan]

Aston Martin says: "Fernando sustained some floor damage in his first Q2 run which cost some performance for his final run in the session."

[Alo_Fan]

Alonso : Q1 - 1:16.288 Q2 - 1:16.453. Could imagine some improvement with the evolution in Q2/Q3. Happy with the pace in qualifying, a surprise from everything we have seen up to this point.

[RedNEO]

Yeah, shame. Looked like much more was possible without the damaged floor, happy with that!

Yeah we have to be happy with that, could have been better but could have been a lot worse. The car has some pace in it!

Would have loved to see where it would have been without the damage (Alonso had a big margin to Stroll in Q1 and then with the damage could only match him in Q2), potentially could have been best of the rest but hard to say.

Aston Martin maybe should have sent him out on new tyres instead of used for his first run in Q2 since his speed was already too great. Some people were struggling to make the tyres last a lap even on new so used was a little risky.

Anyway if he had new tyres or didn't have to fight the snap I think he could have done p5 but we have to be careful because the real performance of the car is lower than that.

Alonso can drive around weaknesses better than 99% of drivers so he probably flattered the cars potential there.

[Alo_Fan]

Yeah we have to be happy with that, could have been better but could have been a lot worse. The car has some pace in it!

Would have loved to see where it would have been without the damage (Alonso had a big margin to Stroll in Q1 and then with the damage could only match him in Q2), potentially could have been best of the rest but hard to say.

Aston Martin maybe should have sent him out on new tyres instead of used for his first run in Q2 since his speed was already too great. Some people were struggling to make the tyres last a lap even on new so used was a little risky.

Anyway if he had new tyres or didn't have to fight the snap I think he could have done p5 but we have to be careful because the real performance of the car is lower than that.

Alonso can drive around weaknesses better than 99% of drivers so he probably flattered the cars potential there.

If I'm right, I believe from looking at the live timing, that the set of tyres used in that Q2 run were the ones Alonso did an outlap on, in Q1 right at the end of the session (not sure why they even bothered to exit the garage but they did). I don't think he did any laps on it apart from the outlap.

I agree, even if he qualified p5-p9, I think the race pace and tyre deg would be a big challenge under dry conditions, similar to early 2024 when the car also looked decent in qualifying.

[RedNEO]

Aston was better than a lot of people expected, me included, but, everybody remember how good was AMR24 in qualy on first quarter of the last season, and, was a terrible disaster during the race. Aston has Cowel, Newey, new simulator, new wind tunnel online, a lot of stuff for improve that car this year, they need improve that car and not make the same poor development like 23-24, and even this, guys, this year will be amazing for championship. Everyone is squeezed under a ridiculous small margin of time

Yeah I think if we had gone through to q3 we probably would have gone backwards in the race judging by Alonso’s gap to Stroll. I think the cars next update will be assisted by Newey so at least the good news is we know Alonso will be ready to drag it out of the car. He was a demon today.. reminded me of 2023!

[RedNEO]

Would have loved to see where it would have been without the damage (Alonso had a big margin to Stroll in Q1 and then with the damage could only match him in Q2), potentially could have been best of the rest but hard to say.

Aston Martin maybe should have sent him out on new tyres instead of used for his first run in Q2 since his speed was already too great. Some people were struggling to make the tyres last a lap even on new so used was a little risky.

Anyway if he had new tyres or didn't have to fight the snap I think he could have done p5 but we have to be careful because the real performance of the car is lower than that.

Alonso can drive around weaknesses better than 99% of drivers so he probably flattered the cars potential there.

If I'm right, I believe from looking at the live timing, that the set of tyres used in that Q2 run were the ones Alonso did an outlap on, in Q1 right at the end of the session (not sure why they even bothered to exit the garage but they did). I don't think he did any laps on it apart from the outlap.

I agree, even if he qualified p5-p9, I think the race pace and tyre deg would be a big challenge under dry conditions, similar to early 2024 when the car also looked decent in qualifying.

Yeah that’s sounds about right. So the tyres were newish but in a way that shows that the limit of the car was hit because it snapped on him twice. The silver lining is the floor damage stopped Alonso from flattering the car and saved us from having to watch the car go backwards to its natural position out of the top ten tomorrow

Tomorrow with rain hes in a good position just outside the top ten to capitalise on a lucky tyre call. Should make the race exciting.

[KimiRai]

Was the team sand bagging or did it just take them exactly all of testing and all the free practices to dial in the car to where it went from hopeless backmarker to solid midfield car?

All of the practices according to De la Rosa. What they tested in FP3 didn't work so they went back.

[KimiRai]

FP2 to FP3 setup changes were a disaster. But FP3 to Qualy worked great. Then Alonso damaged the floor (2nd consecutive year in Australia he does this). What a rollercoaster...

Drivers become the problem in Aston once the car improves, this was a Q3 car. Has been more noticeable since 2024. I am sure Cowell and Newey know this

I think your being a little dramatic calling it a q3 car considering stroll didnt come close. I think Alonso was driving out of his skin to make it seem like a Q3 car but the limit was close as the car snapped on him twice when he was going faster in Q2 that damaged the floor. He was asking more than it could give. Calling Alonso a problem is wild when it was him who made it possible for the car to get close in the first place

It is a fact that in this session the drivers failed. Lance because he is Lance and he is simply bad, and Alonso for making mistakes that were once uncharacteristic. Someone else would have got this car into Q3, that's just the way it is.

[alonsofan]

I generally take the pace of Alo to be 0.5 secs faster than Stroll. So considering that, Alo didn't nail the lap. Car is ---. Alo making it do things it cannot.

[RedNEO]

FP2 to FP3 setup changes were a disaster. But FP3 to Qualy worked great. Then Alonso damaged the floor (2nd consecutive year in Australia he does this). What a rollercoaster...

Drivers become the problem in Aston once the car improves, this was a Q3 car. Has been more noticeable since 2024. I am sure Cowell and Newey know this

I think your being a little dramatic calling it a q3 car considering stroll didnt come close. I think Alonso was driving out of his skin to make it seem like a Q3 car but the limit was close as the car snapped on him twice when he was going faster in Q2 that damaged the floor. He was asking more than it could give. Calling Alonso a problem is wild when it was him who made it possible for the car to get close in the first place

It is a fact that in this session the drivers failed. Lance because he is Lance and he is simply bad, and Alonso for making mistakes that were once uncharacteristic. Someone else would have got this car into Q3, that's just the way it is.

Did you even watch the lap? Because if you did you wouldn’t be saying he made a mistake unless you are clueless

[RedNEO]

I generally take the pace of Alo to be 0.5 secs faster than Stroll. So considering that, Alo didn't nail the lap. Car is ---. Alo making it do things it cannot.

Im not sure what he could have done on the lap to stop a mid corner snap. If we look at this objectively mid corner snaps happen because the corner speed is too great for the downforce available on the rear of the car. If that’s somehow driver error for not nailing the invisible downforce then please explain how.

[SSJ4]

yeah i just watched the qualy onboard. he had a massive snap. didnt look like he was on fresh tyres as well

think p5-p7 was pretty achievable. but at least the car had good underlying pace. wet race tomorrow. so anything can happen

[KimiRai]

In any case we can be very happy with the car performance at least in qualifying. Above all expectations. Now race pace in both wet and dry conditions