Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix was dominated by questions over staff orders, potential rigidity amongst teammates, and issues over the place a sure staff goes from right here.
After all, we’re speaking about Aston Martin.
Sure, how McLaren dealt with issues between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris captured the early headlines, however over at Aston Martin, comparable points over a set of staff orders late within the race have surfaced. Each Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll have been working on the perimeter of the factors late within the race, with Alonso in tenth and Stroll simply behind him in P11.
However with Stroll on brisker tires, Alonso was informed that if he couldn’t catch Tsunoda, he would swap positions with Stroll to let his teammate try to run down the Visa Money App RB F1 Crew driver along with his brisker rubber. “Fernando, we’ve bought yet another lap to shut up on Tsunoda, but when not, we’re going to provide Lance an opportunity,” mentioned Alonso’s Race Engineer Chris Cronin. “Seven laps to go. Seven.”
Alonso was additionally informed that if Stroll couldn’t get to Tsunoda, the place could be given again.
“[W]e will swap again if he doesn’t get in,” added Cronin. “We’ll swap again.”
On the opposite facet of the pit wall Stroll was being suggested relating to the techniques. “Fernando offers you DRS, we’ll go previous him into flip one after which we have to get Tsunoda,” Race Engineer Andrew Vizard knowledgeable him. “The whole lot to get Tsunoda now, in any other case we’ll swap again on the finish of the race,” Vizard added.
Whereas Stroll lower into Tsunoda’s benefit, he by no means bought in place to aim an overtake. When the ultimate lap got here, Vizard reminded Stroll that he wanted to provide the place again.
“That is the ultimate lap,” reminded Vizard. “So if you happen to don’t get him now, that you must change again and pull the road. Fernando’s 4 seconds behind you, there’s no stress behind. I recommend you drop again and let Fernando move. He’s 4 seconds again.”
Nonetheless, Stroll didn’t reply and took the checkered flag in tenth place.
Neither driver addressed the set of staff orders following the race however talked about different technique selections carried out throughout the race.
“Sadly we missed out on the factors immediately and didn’t fairly optimise our race. We pitted fairly early and from that time on we had fairly an extended race forward managing the [tires],” mentioned Alonso. “It’s the primary long-distance we’ve completed with the brand new bundle, so we have to go and analyze our new updates and be taught extra forward of Belgium subsequent week.”
“It was a tough race for us. I don’t suppose we optimised the technique and we weren’t aggressive sufficient,” mentioned Stroll. “We struggled with [tire] degradation, too. We’ve bought quite a lot of work to do as a staff forward of the subsequent spherical. Spa is a really completely different observe, so hopefully that fits our automobile extra.”
As for why the swap was not made, Stroll seemingly believed that on the brisker tires, he would have caught Alonso anyway, which might be why he was reluctant to swap positions again on the finish. And, in fact, we’re speaking about P10 and the ultimate level on supply.
Not one thing greater.
