Fernando Alonso was left frustrated in Las Vegas after being edged out of the points by Sergio Perez in the closing laps.
Having started only 16th the Alonso driver was running 10th behind Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda when Perez demoted him.
The Aston Martin has now had a run of four race weekends without scoring for the first time since early in his 2022 season with Alpine.
“I think every point is gold for us at the moment, even if we are not fighting for many important things,” he said when asked by this writer about his frustration.
“I think it’s good to give something back to the mechanics and to everyone in the team, after all the struggles.”
“But as I said yesterday, I think only two races left this year, but there is a lot of trust in the team, and a lot of new people and new ideas that will come in the future. So looking forward.”
Alonso was the only driver in the field to start on the soft tyres, and while he initially gained two places he quickly slipped back down the order.
“We were different, but I don’t think that it made really a big difference,” he said. “We just stopped very early, which we could have done it also with the medium, if we started with those.”
“So it was not a big benefit on lap one or the start. And then we committed to stop very, very early.”
“But the pace was much better than the race. We were in the points until three laps to the end. So to finish so close to Red Bull, Haas, Tsunoda, it was a little bit of a surprise.”
“Obviously the taste is not great now, because there is no reward for P11, and I think we deserve it. We did a very good race to put the car in P11. So hopefully in Qatar, we have another chance.”
Regarding the balance the said: “It was just a little bit happier today, the car, than yesterday. It seems maybe with fuel or something, already the laps to the grid, the car felt a little bit better than yesterday.”
“It was a difficult weekend to understand the balance, this super low grip level as well.”
“We have to review the weekend. There are some things that we learned for sure, on the car. I think today as I said the strategy was great. The pace was better. Pit stops were very, very fast. I think we did a decent race.”
“So if we started a bit further up in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, the points are possible. So that’s the target. We have two possibilities in Qatar with a sprint, obviously one Saturday, one Sunday.”
“So right now, looking forward for Qatar, because you want to jump in the car again and try.”
