Alonso: Aston Martin has to “speed up” flow of updates

While acknowledging that Aston is bringing updates on a regular basis, the Spaniard cited recent major changes from Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull as a warning that his team had to keep pace.

Aston brought its first upgrade package for the AMR23 to Monaco as a legacy of the cancelled Emilia Romagna Grand Prix pushing back the introduction of new parts.

For the principality race, Aston sported a revised suspension set-up and tweaked brake ducts to improve airflow over the rest of the car and increase brake efficiency and cooling.

A week later, the team has ushered in changes to the front and rear wing and nose cone.

At the front, the wing flap and endplate have been re-profiled to improve the downstream airflow and boost how the entire assembly interacts with the air heading over the tyres.

Due to these revised onset conditions, the camera in the nose cone has been relocated to maximise the effectiveness of the adapted airflow.

Meanwhile, at the rear, the wing endplate tip has been changed and more material added to the inboard face of the main body to increase overall performance.

The beam wing has also been modified. Aston Martin reckons there are two “subtly different” configurations to better interact with the revised surfaces to optimise the distribution of load across the span of the wing.

Aston Martin AMR23 front wing detail

Photo by: Jon Noble

“Yeah, we have some new parts,” said Alonso when asked by Autosport about this weekend’s changes.

“I think front wing, there is some modification there. And we're bringing always new parts to the car.

“Some of them are just circuit specific. Sometimes it's just an improvement in lap time.

“So yeah, I'm happy with how we are approaching every race, there is always something new on our car. We are trying to keep up the pace with the top teams.

“We're still growing in that area of the team. We found ourselves in a very competitive place this year that we didn't expect.

“We still need to speed up things. I think Ferrari is already two floors into this season, Mercedes was obviously a completely new car in Monaco and [the team has] more upgrades here. Red Bull, [had a] Baku package and another one here.

“So we understand that we are not in that position yet. But we stay humble, we stay delivering the job on Sundays, and try to score more points than them."

Alonso scored his best result since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix last time out on the Monaco streets, finishing second for his fifth podium of the campaign.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team, 2nd position, lifts his trophy

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

But he has cautioned that this should not be taken as a sign that the team has made progress in recent weeks, especially relative to pacesetters Red Bull.

"I think we are in the same position,” he said. “We just had Checo [Perez] out of the equation in Monaco. 

"So that's why we fought for second. So yeah, I think at the beginning of the season, we had similar opportunities. It was just Monaco a little bit closer.

“But in the race, we saw the potential of Red Bull anyway, with a very good pace from Max [Verstappen] with mediums. So yeah, let's see.

“When we have another opportunity, but I don't feel in a different position, or we are getting closer and closer to Red Bull.”