Aston Martin Formula 1 performance director Tom McCullough says that the bumpy nature of the resurfaced Interlagos track contributed to “a difficult race” for the Silverstone team.
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll both crashed in Sunday morning’s wet qualifying session after showing some good initial speed.
The cars were repaired for the race, but Stroll went off on the formation lap and Alonso finished 14th after struggling with bouncing and a painful back.
Things were made more complicated in the race for Aston Martin by a switch to an alternative floor spec for both drivers as a result of the qualifying accidents.
“It was a difficult race,” McCullough told formu1a.uno. “I think the consistency of the car, it’s not easy to drive, and we’ve seen that for a while now. Both drivers were really struggling.
“So yes, we had some reasonable pace at times with Fernando, but we were also struggling with locking both front and rear, and the very bumpy nature of the track didn’t play to our strengths.
“The track was resurfaced, and was by far the worst-riding track of the year. So we could make the car nicer from a ride perspective, but it costs performance, so we’re always playing that balance.”
Regarding Stroll’s pre-race off he said: “The rundown to Turn 4 was particularly bumpy. We found that difficult all weekend. We tried working with setups to help that. But the car is struggling in those areas at the moment.
“It’s an old school track, it bites. It was wet, and it bit a lot of people, didn’t it? It’s got walls quite close by as well.”
The initial pace in wet qualifying did at least provide some encouragement for Aston Martin.
“I think throughout qualifying ordering the cars were competitive, which was good,” said McCullough. “We made a lot of changes, and with the understanding of the tyres, and the wet setup that most people had gone to and that we went to, we were definitely more competitive.
“So it was disappointing to finish quali with damage to both cars, but good to get them both into the top 10.”
Regarding the remaining races of the 2024 season he said: “We don’t have any more updates coming. It’s about maximising the spec of the car for the three very different kinds of tracks. And we’ve got to score some points in those three races.
“I think that will maybe play a bit more to our strengths, based on what we’ve seen so far this year. So we go there trying to score some points.”
