Aston Martin F1 Team
Following a tough weekend at the 2024 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, the final European race of the season, Fernando and Lance finished P11 and P19, respectively.
The drivers started the Italian Grand Prix on different tyre compounds – Fernando on the Medium and Lance on the Hard. After a good start, Fernando made up a position on the first lap to P10. Lance could also make up positions sitting in P15 by Lap 7. Fernando first made a pitstop on lap 13 for the Hard tyre, with Lance following at the end of lap 20 for another set of Hards. Fernando pitted again on lap 36, with Lance stopping for Mediums a lap later. Lance stopped for a third time on lap 51 for the Soft compound. At the chequered flag, Fernando just missed out on the final World Championship point by a tenth of a second, finishing P11. Lance classified P19.
Fernando Alonso
It was a difficult race today. We maximised the pace the best we could. I pushed the car to its limits, so I’m happy in that regard, but we struggled with the relative pace of the car while on track. We were in the points at the start of the race and were able to undercut [Alex] Albon, thinking all teams would execute a two-stop race.
It wasn’t enough at the end to recover from that extra pit stop. We were only 0.2 seconds behind [Kevin] Magnussen and a second behind Albon, so it is disappointing that we did not score any points today. We will keep pushing.
Lance Stroll
Today’s result was more or less what we expected. We haven’t had the pace to challenge all weekend, and we knew there wouldn’t be much we could do from P17. We went into the race open to a one or two-stop strategy, but elected to stop twice when we saw the levels of tyre degradation.
We then stopped for a third time at the end to try and take the fastest lap. Ultimately, we know we’re missing the performance we need, and the focus remains on bringing that to the car.
Mike Krack, Team Principal:
Looking at the cars finishing around us, it is tempting to say we could have tried a one-stop strategy, but we know our car is hard on tyres, and it was not an easy call today. We saw other teams facing the same difficult decision, too. Fernando was in the fight for points all afternoon and until the very last lap – chasing down Albon and Magnussen – but we just ran out of laps in the end.
We always knew it would be a tough race, and we need to find more performance to compete in this very tight midfield. We will keep our heads down to come back stronger in Baku.
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