Fernando Alonso says he is not as concerned by Aston Martin's performance in the Singapore Grand Prix after a suspension issue came to light. Alonso was running in the points for a great deal of the Marina Bay race, but a slow pit-stop and mistake at Turn 14 meant he finished outside of the points in 15th place, branding the car "undriveable" at one point. However, after the race the team discovered that the front-left suspension shroud had worked its way loose and rotated in such a way to disrupt the aerodynamics of the AMR23. While Alonso would not specifically say just how much of an impact the issue had, the two-time champion did talk about the effect of it.
Alonso's Aston issue
"Definitely it was not helping," Alonso told media including RacingNews365 at Suzuka ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. "We know how much it affected us, but we will not share, but it was significant. "I am a little bit less worried about the performance in Singapore after knowing the damage that we had, so the pace was not real in the race. "We thought that maybe we could have followed the train of the leaders and have less problems [passing] the Alpine and [Sergio] Perez, then everything would have changed. "But when you are not too fast, you get into a lot of problems." Alonso also revealed the shroud issue was caused by a "private thing" on which he would not elaborate, while reiterating his commitment to the Aston project despite a drop off in form after just one podium in the seven races since the Canadian GP after six in the first eight races of the year. "I'm extremely happy with the project, difficult races like Singapore or Monza, all our debriefs, all our meetings with the factory, they are very productive. It is these weekends that we learn more," he said. "The steps that we plan ahead for the future, or for next year when we come to those races, are just huge. "I never seen that kind of scale in terms of ideas and things on the table, the motivation that the team has to become a top team and the resources and the determination is just outstanding. I'm very happy. "We have to accept that everyone here [in F1] has a very high level. "Everyone has great designers, a great team, wind tunnels, and all these kinds of things. "When we think about our wind tunnel that will be built next year, we have high hopes, most of the top teams, have had that wind tunnel already for a few years, so we will just [become] level to their capacity."
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