Fernando Alonso re-signed with Aston Martin after a brilliant first year with the Silverstone-based team. However, the team isn’t even close to where it wants or expects to be after the podium flurry in 2023. Quite the opposite really as the team seems to be fighting in the midfield with the likes of Haas, VCARB, and Alpine. Lawrence Stroll is now rumored to be bringing back the Former Ferrari Team Principal to his team, as he’s unhappy with the performance. 

Aston Martin dropped down the grid throughout the 2023 season after being able to match the likes of Mercedes and McLaren, who were able to make their upgrades work. And the start to the 2024 season hasn’t been great either, with Aston Martin 5th in the championship, looking far away from the pace of front runners. The team has already brought two major upgrades to the AMR24, but they don’t seem to work either. 

The car has gained down force, but the team isn’t able to extract it from the car and the setup. Amid all this, Lawrence Stroll is believed to be getting impatient. The Aston Martin Team owner is a very hands-on person when it comes to involvement. Stroll did not like his team’s performance at the Imola GP and seems to have had a volcanic eruption. 

However, as per Speedweek, Lawrence Stroll is rumored to be ready to bring in Mattia Binotto, the former Ferrari TP, to the team. Mathias Brunner suggests that Luigi Perna believes that Aston Martin can be Binotto’s next option. The ex-Ferrari boss was spotted talking to Lawrence Stroll at the Imola GP, and it didn’t seem to be a courtesy meeting, but something serious and meaningful.

What do you think? Will Mattia Binotto come to Aston Martin? Regardless, Fernando Alonso, before the Monaco GP weekend, expressed how both he and Lawrence Stroll have the same feeling within the car, and this helps the team to know what can be improved on.

Fernando Alonso on the AMR24 upgrades: “The Balance is Not Totally Perfect”

One usually doesn’t see Fernando Alonso struggle with the car but Imola GP was one of his worst weekends in F1. He crashed in FP3, ran over gravel in qualifying that ruined his session and floor, followed by the “most boring” race for him. As Aston Martin tries and understand its problems, Fernando Alonso has come out and explained what’s wrong with the AMR24 and why it isn’t able to perform despite the upgrades.

According to Motorsport Magazine, Alonso said, “I think we both have similar feelings on the car and similar comments. There are a couple of set-up tools and directions that could improve that, something that we were testing on my car in Imola on Sunday for example. But fundamentally we need to keep working on the balance of the car. We added downforce in all the upgrades that we brought to the track, but we still cannot use all that downforce in an efficient way in lap time because the balance is maybe not totally perfect in the corners. But I think we understand this.”

Will Aston Martin be able to improve before the mid-season break?