2023 Aston Martin | Aramco | Cognizant F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

What do you all think about Aston Martin's upgrade development this first half? Doesn't it seem a bit slow? We are in the 7th race and I haven't seen any big improvement in the performance of the car so far. Is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

It's odd, but also suggest they have a big upside ahead.

[KimiRai]

What do you all think about Aston Martin's upgrade development this first half? Doesn't it seem a bit slow? We are in the 7th race and I haven't seen any big improvement in the performance of the car so far. Is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

According to Krack some upgrades that weren't sent for Monaco due to track characteristics will arrive in Spain.

And the same little bird as before is singing in the trees, though the little bird this time doesn't want others to hear its melody yet.

[AMG.Tzan]

What do you all think about Aston Martin's upgrade development this first half? Doesn't it seem a bit slow? We are in the 7th race and I haven't seen any big improvement in the performance of the car so far. Is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

It's odd, but also suggest they have a big upside ahead.

With the amount of development time they’ve got after finishing 7th last year I would expect them to push a lot and bring a lot of upgrades until July when they’ll lose a lot of development time due to development restrictions!

So if they’re still 2nd they’ll go from 100% to 75% CFD resources for the rest of the year!

[AR3-GP]

What do you all think about Aston Martin's upgrade development this first half? Doesn't it seem a bit slow? We are in the 7th race and I haven't seen any big improvement in the performance of the car so far. Is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

It's odd, but also suggest they have a big upside ahead.

With the amount of development time they’ve got after finishing 7th last year I would expect them to push a lot and bring a lot of upgrades until July when they’ll lose a lot of development time due to development restrictions!

So if they’re still 2nd they’ll go from 100% to 75% CFD resources for the rest of the year!

The physical amount of upgrades is still limited by the budget cap. Therefore they can only afford roughly the same amount of "upgrade" packages throughout the season as the others. The difference will be that due to the additional windtunnel time that goes into each package, each package should have a bigger lap time improvement.

[diffuser]

Wrong call by the team to switch to Medium on the first pit-stop but I am surprised Alonso didn't overrule the team's call & asked for inters. Max confirmed the same when the Redbull pit wall suggest 'Inters'.

He was in doubt if you listen the radio and at the end of the day if the team tells him rain is going to be light or go away in a few laps, why should he question it?.

It was what it was....I questioned Alonso's insistence on pitting when he did while Max was soldiering on. One more lap and they would have no choice but to go on to wets. In retrospective he was right. That extra lap by Max almost put him into the wall and cost him the race.

Maybe, if you replay the race 9 more times. If the drivers always make the same choices, maybe Max damages the car on half of those iterations. Sometimes you just got to say there was no better answer.

[AR3-GP]

Wrong call by the team to switch to Medium on the first pit-stop but I am surprised Alonso didn't overrule the team's call & asked for inters. Max confirmed the same when the Redbull pit wall suggest 'Inters'.

He was in doubt if you listen the radio and at the end of the day if the team tells him rain is going to be light or go away in a few laps, why should he question it?.

It was what it was....I questioned Alonso's insistence on pitting when he did while Max was soldiering on. One more lap and they would have no choice but to go on to wets. In retrospective he was right. That extra lap by Max almost put him into the wall and cost him the race.

What difference does it make? Alonso was no better off on a new set of slicks than Verstappen on the old set of slicks so pitting 1 lap earlier had no purpose or benefit relative to Verstappen so I don't understand how it was "the right call".

[peewon]

What do you all think about Aston Martin's upgrade development this first half? Doesn't it seem a bit slow? We are in the 7th race and I haven't seen any big improvement in the performance of the car so far. Is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

Its hard to find obvious and drastic upgrades when your baseline is already strong. Their efficiency/drag looked better in Miami. But you cant really judge their in-season development on the same timeline as others who had more obvious areas of improvement. It'll be very interesting to see how they do but probably wont be clear before the end of the season.

[makecry]

What do you all think about Aston Martin's upgrade development this first half? Doesn't it seem a bit slow? We are in the 7th race and I haven't seen any big improvement in the performance of the car so far. Is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

Its hard to find obvious and drastic upgrades when your baseline is already strong. Their efficiency/drag looked better in Miami. But you cant really judge their in-season development on the same timeline as others who had more obvious areas of improvement. It'll be very interesting to see how they do but probably wont be clear before the end of the season.

Disagree, other tops teams including RBR has brought way more upgrades/updates.

[-wkst-]

What I find strange or a bit alarming is that they have (according to a lot of opinions) a "basic" floor design, but didn't update it yet. Although nearly every team did already update the floor this year and everyone also says that lap times comes mainly through the floor.

But let's wait for Spain and Canada.

[Bisonas]

He was in doubt if you listen the radio and at the end of the day if the team tells him rain is going to be light or go away in a few laps, why should he question it?.

It was what it was....I questioned Alonso's insistence on pitting when he did while Max was soldiering on. One more lap and they would have no choice but to go on to wets. In retrospective he was right. That extra lap by Max almost put him into the wall and cost him the race.

What difference does it make? Alonso was no better off on a new set of slicks than Verstappen on the old set of slicks so pitting 1 lap earlier had no purpose or benefit relative to Verstappen so I don't understand how it was "the right call".

The call for pitting in that lap was right. The tyre choice was wrong.
But IMO you cant accuse them for pitting in that lap. It was the right time to pit.
If they had also made the correct tyre choice they may had won the race, because as i pointed out, in hindsight and having all the data, and sector times, ALO would have been ahead, after VER pitstop.

[Vanja #66]

Alonso is known for his determination to decide on his own strategy in these types of situations. It's not the first time he made a mistake, not choosing the intermediate tyre lost him his best chance of victory this year.

[Bisonas]

Alonso is known for his determination to decide on his own strategy in these types of situations. It's not the first time he made a mistake, not choosing the intermediate tyre lost him his best chance of victory this year.

It's more of a team mistake, than an Alonso mistake. Alonso wasn't sure of what to choose because he didn't knew the forecast and how the rain would develop. He told the team many times on the radio, that he doesn't know because it depends on the forecast.

Horner told VER, look max, tell us, when you have to pit, in order to keep the car on the track. So max stayed out and he came in one lap too late. And yea, it was one lap too late because 1st he almost put it in the wall on his in lap, and 2nd others where gaining 7-10 seconds on him per lap while on inters.

ALO was doing much better times than VER prior to his pit in mixed conditions, he knew and he told the team that some part of the track where for Intermediates and he also said many times to the team, it's all about the "Forecast". Meaning that they have to decide because at that point if rain would stop the next lap, Inters would be the wrong call.

So the team took the decision, to pit and put slicks, betting on the rain easing off.
The timing of the pit was 100% correct. The tyre choice was 100% wrong.

Red bull mistake was to keep VER out, one more lap, than necessary. They where on the ropes in did, at that time, with Alonso having the better conditioned tire, closing fast on VER in the mixed conditions. They risked a lot, and they where lucky, 1st because VER survived the in lap, and 2nd because AMR did the wrong tyre choice.

If AMR gave Inters to Alonso, in his first pit, we would probably be talking know about AMRs master class strategy and RBR huge strategic mistake.

Alonso urged a little bit the team to PIT, yes, because he felt it isn't worth the risk staying out like this. He told them that. But he never urged the team to put him on slicks. At that time he told them, many times, that its all about the forecast. Rain easing off, or not. The slicks was the teams decision and how they read the forecast at that point.

[KimiRai]

Alonso is known for his determination to decide on his own strategy in these types of situations. It's not the first time he made a mistake, not choosing the intermediate tyre lost him his best chance of victory this year.

My interpretation is this, which could be wrong obviously. Its not the first time only light rain happens for a while then it stops, and the forecast seemed to indicate that. Stroll had inters but his data didn't confirm it was the correct tyre yet, either because of his fault or that because it really wasn't. Right after Alo pit for mediums and coming out of the pits a huge shower came which was completely unexpected on the forecast and then it was obvious the pit was for inters, not before. If that hadn't happened the Alo stop for mediums would've been the perfect move as only a small part of the circuit was damp and the rest was not, and the extra grip offered by the new mediums would've been enough to survive that damp part. Also, if that shower had come 30 or so seconds earlier then they'd have seen it and changed for inters. It happened after, not before the stop. I doubt its this big mistake some people think it is, maybe too much overanalyzing.

By the way, Imagine if AM had started on the Mediums for example, and most likely wouldn't have gained position on the start (the reason why they chose the hards). Alo's mediums wouldn't have lasted the same laps as Max's at all and they would've had to pit quite some laps before these crucial laps, so that was a good choice.

And most important of all, this team is massively overachieving with less personnel and lesser infrastructure than the top teams. If they didn't overachieve at all they should be around Alpine's level or even slightly below. In paper only with the new wind tunnel and the Honda deal should they have the base to fight with the top teams, so cut them some slack. But it is true that the strategy team Red Bull has is superior.

[AR3-GP]

It was what it was....I questioned Alonso's insistence on pitting when he did while Max was soldiering on. One more lap and they would have no choice but to go on to wets. In retrospective he was right. That extra lap by Max almost put him into the wall and cost him the race.

What difference does it make? Alonso was no better off on a new set of slicks than Verstappen on the old set of slicks so pitting 1 lap earlier had no purpose or benefit relative to Verstappen so I don't understand how it was "the right call".

The call for pitting in that lap was right. The tyre choice was wrong.
But IMO you cant accuse them for pitting in that lap. It was the right time to pit.
If they had also made the correct tyre choice they may had won the race, because as i pointed out, in hindsight and having all the data, and sector times, ALO would have been ahead, after VER pitstop.

This might be a semantical point, but stopping and then putting on the wrong tire means the whole call was bad, not just the part where they put on the wrong tire. People who stopped before Alonso put on inters. Slick tire stops were only correct many laps prior.

[organic]