Alonso frustration at Aston Martin failure to exploit Red Bull 'cracks'

Fernando Alonso has vented his frustration that Aston Martin has been unable to exploit Red Bull's performance "cracks".

Aston Martin is enduring a difficult campaign which has seen the Silverstone-based outfit score just 73 points, a remarkable 123 shy of last season's total at the summer break stage, and with two races more this campaign.

For the majority of last year, Aston Martin was Red Bull's closest competitor, resulting in seven podiums for Alonso in the first 13 rounds of 2023.

The Spaniard came close to winning on a few occasions, although Max Verstappen and Red Bull were too dominant. 

It is a very different story this season, as seven different drivers have won a race. For Aston Martin, the end of Red Bull's dominance has come 12 months too late. 

"It's the way it is," Alonso told select media including RacingNews365. "I think last year, we were the best of the rest but Red Bull was unbeatable. 

"They never had a bad pit stop, they never had a crash, they never had a bad qualifying, they never had any problem. And then we were just third or second all the time.

 "All the pictures of my podiums last year, they have Checo and Max with me. First and second, or first and third, and I was in the middle."

Aston Martin 'pace' struggles

Even in the latter stages of last season when Red Bull showed weakness in Singapore, Aston Martin was unable to capitalise due to its problems. 

The British team began to struggle after introducing a mid-season upgrade package and has yet to truly recover, leading to a challenging year, with its best result Alonso's fifth in Saudi Arabia.

Alonso recognises it is up to the team to get itself back towards the front to make the most of when Red Bull is not firing on all cylinders.

"Things changed a little bit and we were not there to take the opportunity," conceded Alonso. "We said many times last year, we need to keep up, we need to be always hunting them and when they have any crack, we have to take the opportunity.

"And when they started to have any kind of problem, we were not there anymore. So that's up to us that we were not able to keep up with that pace."