Fernando Alonso is fearful of failing to score a point all season amid Aston Martin’s lack of pace so far in 2025.
Alonso is one of four drivers yet to get off the mark after five races, following an 11th-place finish in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. He retired from the first two races of the season, before coming home 11th in Japan and 15th in Bahrain.
The two-time F1 world champion, the oldest driver on the grid at 43, has scored at least one point in every season bar one of his F1 career – his only other point-less season coming in his rookie year for Minardi in 2001.
Yet in explaining how his car finished just outside the points in Jeddah on Sunday, Alonso insisted it will be “difficult” to score points this year, with at least six teams consistently quicker than the green-clad outfit currently.
"I gave everything on track,” he said. “It was hard to keep up the pace with the cars in front. We were just not quick enough.
"P11 is the worst position, probably, you can finish, and we need to get used to it. It's going to be difficult to score points this year."
"Today we are P11 also because Yuki [Tsunoda] and Pierre [Gasly] had contact in lap one and Liam [Lawson] had a 10-second penalty.
“If not, we were P14. But there’s still a long way to go."
Lance Stroll, Alonso’s teammate, has scored the team’s only points of the year so far – 10 – with a sixth-place finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and a P9 in round two in China.
Alonso has a contract with Aston until the end of next season, when new engine and chassis regulations threaten to shake up the pecking order.
The Silverstone-based team, armed with a new factory and wind tunnel amid owner Lawrence Stroll’s mammoth investment into the team, have also acquired the services of F1’s greatest-ever designer in Adrian Newey, who started work on next year’s car last month.
Aston have also been strongly linked with a mega-money move for Red Bull’s four-time world champion Max Verstappen.
Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell said in Jeddah: "We're getting together to have a think about what we've learned over this triple-header, and [ask] what do we do going forward?
"Can we get more out of the car? Yes, I think we can. I think there's many areas where we look back over the last races and [think] we can get more out of the car. Is it enough to win races? No.
"But is it where we can push forward a bit more? Yes, it is. We're learning about this car, and we're learning about all the new equipment that we've got in the factory, and how to push things forward."
The next race of the 2025 season is the Miami Grand Prix, which hosts the second sprint weekend of the year. Alonso recorded a podium in Florida back in 2023 for Aston.
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