Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack has revealed the extent to which Fernando Alonso was pretty upset after the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix.
After showing promising pace during practice at Zandvoort, the two-time World Champion could only muster a 10th-place grid slot for the 72-lap race.
And while the Spaniard was hopeful of making inroads into the points, his race was destined for frustration from the start.
He lost places to the likes of Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda and Andrea Kimi Antonelli on the opening lap, dropping him down as low as 13th place.
From there on, the three Safety Car periods, and Aston Martin’s initial decision to call him in for a stop on Lap 18 meant he could only take the chequered flag in ninth.
His team-mate Lance Stroll, on the other hand, finished ahead of him in eighth despite crashing out in Q1 on Saturday.
“He was angry with the race, he was angry with the world, he was angry with us, he is angry with everybody,” Krack told media including Motorsport Week.
“Nothing we can do in these situations, we have to take it as it is and try to find the best solution with the new boundary conditions. The conditions have changed, now you have this, other people could stop in front.
“We knew that other people had less tyres than we had, so they had to hang out, they had to stay out a bit longer and go through the rain.”
Why Stroll excelled over Alonso at the Dutch GP
Stroll had an interrupted race weekend at Zandvoort with crashes during both practice and qualifying.
This meant that the team had very limited track running to fully calibrate the AMR25 and its strategy for the race.
However, the mixed conditions threw a spanner in the work for Alonso, while it benefitted Stroll, explained Krack.
“We knew that other people had less tyres than we had, so they had to hang out, they had to stay out a bit longer and go through the rain,” he added.
“Lance gained a lot of position by stopping very early there, so I think that was the right decision, but you can only do it if you have the tyres.
“At one point you think, ‘can we go to the end or not?’. But we could see that the tyre degradation was high.
“You have the plank wear, and you have to be legal after the race.
“We didn’t do a lot of laps on Friday, Lance had the accident and Fernando did not do many long-run laps, so you are a little bit in unknown territory when it comes to the wear
“So you have to take a bit more of a conservative approach. We had to do that and that is costing a bit of performance.”
READ MORE – Motorsport Week’s F1 2025 Dutch GP Driver Ratings
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