More difficult for Alonso: “At the moment it is a complicated issue, and then, the gear changes”

There were hopes that Aston Martin could perform better in Monaco and aspire to positions higher than the last. On a circuit where the engine does not count as much, without long straights and full of slow corners, and where the hands matter more, it was expected that FFernando Alonso He could repeat one of his feats in search of placing his car in a better position than the one indicated by the computers. But the car did not support him again, with several accumulated problems that left him in 20th place, with no option to attack.

Fernando Alonso announced on Thursday. He said that to attack and risk in MonacoI needed everything to fit, for the problems when downshifting not to be repeated, for the improvement in that aspect to be confirmed in Canada. Because otherwise, that could lead him to the wall, as a mere passenger in his car, through no fault of his own and without being able to do anything to avoid it.

“Monaco is not the ideal place to suffer an unexpected downshift that causes the rear axle to lock or a strange thrust, because then you will end up against the wall and the driver will look like the culprit. But sometimes we are passengers of what happens when you downshift and the engine pushes as if you were going full throttle. That is something we need to make sure we have taken a step forward from Canada, and Monaco will tell us the truth,” he said.

And unfortunately for the interests of Fernando and the team, the first day on the track in Monaco he told a truth that they did not want to hear.

“A little bit of everything has happened to us. I think, grip-wise, we are not happy with the front axle. We are losing a lot of front grip in the middle of the corners and we seem to have chronic understeer that we cannot resolve. We have made a couple of changes in the configuration, we will do more tonight and we hope to improve the situation, but at the moment it is a complicated issue,” said Fernando. It is clear then that not all of Aston Martin’s problem is in the engine, also in aerodynamics that should change completely after the summer, as Fernando has been reiterating for several races. But it does not end here. The problems with the gears continue to hamper the team.

“And then the gear changes, both up and down, and the level of energy recovery when entering the corners in Monaco are crucial to being precise and confident in the corners, and at the moment it’s too inconsistent with the way the car downshifts and the speed at which you approach the corners, so it’s not easy to drive.”explained the Asturian. And so, it is impossible to fight, as was made clear by the enormous scare that occurred in FP1.

“It’s simply that now we recover a lot of energy during braking, the rear axle is charging the battery massively when braking and then you have these gear reductions in which you have to interact with the engine blip to engage the next gear, and there are things that are happening this year and it seems that we are not at that level yet,” he added in his explanation of the problem with the gears.

Scared and saved in the morning

The Asturian had to use class and reflexes when he saw that his car, while braking at one of the fastest points in Monaco, at the exit of the tunnel, It curled towards the wall. He quickly turned the steering wheel, released the brake and managed to avoid an impact that would have been very strong. He was able to save it, but he knew that this weekend, again, things would be very complicated.

It must be remembered that in addition, Lance Stroll already warned the day before that there was a gear synchronization problem which forces them to resynchronize them every time it happens.

“Every time we go below 40 km/h, the synchronization of the gears is lost, so we have to resynchronize them. In Monaco, for example, every time we go through the hairpin, we will lose the synchronization of the gears. It is a large amount of time,” the Canadian said on Thursday, although it is unknown if this is the same setback that Fernando referred to.