(Motorsports news) Alonso finished third in last week’s Brazilian Grand Prix, his first podium in seven races, after a thrilling battle with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez on the final lap. It was a return to form for Aston Martin, which had impressed with six podiums in the first races before sinking into midfield obscurity following the summer break. Its performance slump hit a trough in the first two races of the Americas triple header, with Alonso and Stroll ousted in Q1 at Austin, albeit Stroll benefited from two disqualifications to finish ninth.

Alonso qualified 13th in Mexico, while Stroll had a pitlane start after qualifying 18th, before both drivers exited from the race. Alonso noted that the team’s lowest performance of the season resulted from “painful” attempts to establish directions for the 2024 car. “I think we’ve been struggling for a few months, but the last two races were probably quite painful,” Alonso said after securing his eighth podium of the season, giving Aston Martin an outside chance of catching McLaren for fourth.

“We had to experiment a little bit on a few things on the car to really understand the direction that we were going, and we also have to go for next year’s car, so those races, especially Mexico, were painful. We were very slow as a team, but it was nice to see everyone in the team very focused, the determination in the team was so nice from the outside to see and to go deep in the analysis and get back stronger in Interlagos.”

After determining the best car configuration for Brazil, the Spaniard is optimistic that the final 2023 races in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi will be more like Sao Paulo than the previous two weekends. “I believe so. “At least closer to these than Mexico,” the two-time world champion added. “I believe a couple of things have been understood within the team, as well as the direction to take.” We had high aspirations for this race, and they were right.

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