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Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack has defended Fernando Alonso’s criticism of the team following a below-par performance in Singapore.
Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin endured a torrid race at the Singapore Grand Prix Image Credit: Aston Martin F1 Media Pool)Fernando Alonso’s P15 at Singapore is his first race finish outside of the points in 2023. Alonso and Aston Martin struggled for pace all weekend, blighted by issues in the race.
Qualifying proved particularly difficult. Lance Stroll’s dramatic high-speed accident resulted in one Aston Martin being withdrawn before the race had even begun. Alonso’s eventual P7 was far below expectations.
Although Alonso could not match the leading pace in the race, he was on course to finish P6. However, a five-second penalty for crossing the white line combined with a disastrous pit stop saw him finish last of the 15 runners. Unhappy with his evening under the lights in Singapore, Alonso was scathing when speaking to the media.
Pace drop-off and pit problems
Speaking to motorsport.com after the race, Team Principal Mike Krack said he understood Alonso’s comments, stating his driver’s rebuke was “not a problem”:
“As a team, we need to acknowledge if a driver is critical. Obviously there is not the performance that he’s expecting, and that he’s used to, and then I think it’s okay.
“We want them to give everything, and then it’s normal that also sportsmen react like that. So it’s not a problem.”
Krack admitted the front runners were out of reach but said that Alonso ‘struggled’ on the hard tyres. This set off the chain of events that led to Aston Martin’s sole car finishing at the back of the field: “We thought we had a good rhythm. I think we knew upfront that it would be difficult to go with the front guys. So I think on the medium, everything ran pretty solid.”
“Then after the safety car we fitted the hard tyres, and we struggled a bit more, we need to understand why. To a point where we said when the virtual safety car came we were not sure that we could go the full distance with a decent level of performance.”
“And we decided to change, and then the sequence of events, the penalty, the pitstop went wrong, and then we came out in a really bad position. And that was it at the end.”
Catalogue of unfortunate events
Krack said the team needed to “understand” its Singapore issues: “We need to really understand what happened,” he said. “We also have a little bit of damage on the car that we need to understand, how much it did.”
“We had three different specs of tyres. And Singapore is also somewhere where you run close in traffic all the time, which is affecting always a lot and you don’t know how much are others saving, how much are people managing? So this is one of the most difficult races always to understand.”
He also said that Alonso’s pit stop entry issue will not be addressed until Aston Martin has analysed his car’s settings: “We need to review that. Because there are some settings to be made, if they were made, and if he was also reminded to do them. So I will be careful about [calling it a] mistake until we have analysed that.”
Feature Image Credit: Aston Martin F1 Media Pool
