Aston Martin has consistently battled the front-runners in qualifying this year, evidenced most recently by Fernando Alonso in China. The Spaniard started in P3 for both the Saturday Sprint race and the Sunday Grand Prix. On paper, this is welcome news for Aston. At the end of last season, their absolute performance took a significant decline. However, this year’s improved qualifying form is hardly something to celebrate, given that the AMR24 goes backwards on race day.
Alonso is often regarded as a driver who is faster on race day than in qualifying. The Double World Champion has consistently utilised his speed and experience to deliver results on Sunday. Even this season, his efforts over a race distance have been admirable.
Frustratingly for Aston, the AMR24 goes from a genuine threat to Ferrari and McLaren on Saturday to an afterthought in the top-five battle on Sundays.
ASTON MARTIN SUFFER FROM SIGNIFICANT TYRE DEGRADATION
The Chinese GP confirmed the root cause of this. Aston Martin’s tyre degradation was the worst of any team last weekend. The Silverstone-based team lost an average of 0.215 per lap from tyre wear (as reported by motorsport-total), more than any other team. For reference, Ferrari lost just 0.135 on average. Over a 90-minute race, this time loss is catastrophic.
In 2023, Mike Krack and his personnel experienced the opposite phenomenon. They are among the best teams at conserving tyre life. However, the 2024 season has seen Aston adopt many of the unwanted tendencies from last year’s Ferrari. The same characteristic that proves a strength in qualifying is overheating and – by extension – wearing them down on Sunday.
At round five in Japan, there was optimism this problem was fixed. Fernando Alonso managed to extend his stint on the soft tyres – for example – longer than Lando Norris managed on the medium tyres. As the first race where the AMR24 ran its upgrade package, this was an encouraging sign.
Unfortunately for the British team, this problem is not fully solved. Aside from its undesirable tyre management, Aston Martin is also – very fundamentally – slower over a race distance. Even taking away the issue of tyre degradation, they fail to extract the same level of downforce as their competitors.
Currently, it seems that low-fuel running disguises some of the AMR24’s weaknesses. Meanwhile, Ferrari generally takes a big step forward between Saturday and Sunday.
If Aston cannot address this problem, they will continue to regress on race day.
