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The battle between the six F1 teams behind the regular top four frontrunners is incredibly tight this year, and the rewards for getting it right are substantial.

Thus any retirement that costs priceless points is inevitably frustrating, and that was certainly the case for Fernando Alonso at Monza.

Having surprised himself and the team by making Q3 and starting eighth (helped by Lewis Hamilton’s penalty) the Spaniard had a solid run in the first part of the race.

He was running eighth when he jumped protégé Gabriel Bortoleto in the pits, but shortly afterwards he slowed and headed to the pits after a spectacular suspension failure on the exit kerbs at Ascari.

Such retirements are rare, especially 16 races into the season when cars have gone through a lot of punishment and usually any fragility would have been exposed. And like everyone else Alonso had clattered over the same kerbs many times over the course of the weekend.

It was particularly galling for the former World Champion in that it happened while a decent score was on the cards, and it wasn’t the first time in 2025 that points have gone astray for him, following a PU issue in Monaco, while he also had brake problems early in the Chinese GP.

“We’re using that kerb every lap, basically,” said Alonso when I asked him about the Monza stoppage. “Only in our car we had the suspension problem. And always these things happen when we have a scoring race.

“We had some races that we were dead last and nothing happened, like Spa that we are running one lap behind the leaders.

“Monaco, I think I was P6 retired with an engine problem. Today, I was P7 and I retired with a suspension problem. So yeah, there are dozens of points that the luck probably was not with us.”

He added: “It’s frustrating that I should have maybe 20-30 points more than what I have not down to me. But yes, it’s the way it is, unfortunately. I’m getting used to it.”

That total might have been a little exaggerated, but he made his point. He also didn’t really see the strong performance prior to his retirement as an upside.

“I don’t need to have good performance,” he said. “I need the points, and the performances are always good, and I don’t remember having a very bad performance, on the team or on my side in 22 seasons. So it’s not really important.”

As of Sunday night the team had no explanation for the failure, with the relevant parts obviously being rush back to Silverstone for proper analysis.

“No, we didn’t see anything,” said Mike Krack. “It would have been easy to say he went wide or something, but we didn’t see anything unusual. And that is why I think it’s important to do this kind of analysis properly.

“It’s easy to point at the driver, it’s easy to point any kind of incident. You need to stay factual in such situations.

“What we had to do is tell Lance to be careful in that area. And that is all you can do in such a situation, make sure that the sister car goes a little bit careful, even if it’s not related. But that is something that you have to do. And then you have to do the analysis properly afterwards.”

Krack conceded that there have been issues that didn’t necessarily reach the public domain related to the loadings that current cars go through.

“With this generation of cars, we have seen issues that we have never had,” he said. “A lot is also because the cars are touching a lot more with the floor.

“So we have seen in other areas failures that we have never had before, not that they have led to DNF, but where we never had anything like that, because the cars are running so stiff and so low, so there is a different loading on the car.”

Alonso might not have been too excited about the performance but until his retirement it had been a well-executed race for driver and team, and while he might have lost seventh to late stopper Alex Albon he should have been at least eighth.

Those points would have provided an extra cushion over the likes of Racing Bulls and Sauber, both of those chasing teams having also gained from the Aston stopping.

“I think the strategy went really well, because everything went to plan, more or less,” said Krack.

“We know Gabriel in front was very fast on the straight, so we could take his DRS. We were dreaming a bit to replicate the Austria race, where we were in the DRS of Liam [Lawson] all the time. And it worked out pretty well.

“I think we called at the right moment to box, managed to pass Gabriel, and it would have been quite a strong finish, I think. We had a little bit the upper hand in the beginning on the hard.

“I don’t know how we would have gone obviously later on in the race. Albon was fast, I think it would have been difficult [to beat him], but I think we could have finished in the points.”

With his 44^th birthday just a month away Fernando Alonso continues give his all with the difficult Aston Martin AMR25.

The Spaniard struggled all weekend in Austria with a car has that had balance issues and didn’t respond to changes – a characteristic it has demonstrated all season – and yet he managed to get to 11^th on the grid.

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When I asked if that outcome represented damage limitation given the issues he’d had in practice he agreed it was.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I think the whole weekend has been so-so for me, I was not happy with the car.

“We had a very unbalanced car since FP1, very understeering at high-speed, very oversteering in the slow-speed. So it’s difficult when you deal with two problems that separated and that big in different parts of the circuit.

“So we tried multiple setups between the two cars, just to try to help each other and try to get to a conclusion faster.

“And we could not move the character of the car from that, and we still ended up in qualifying with exactly the same balance problem that we had in FP1.

“So that was the frustrating thing throughout the weekend. But on the other side, as you said, position-wise it’s not too bad, P11, only one place away from the points. So let’s take the good part of the qualifying, and hopefully be a little bit stronger tomorrow.”

With the cars diverging Lance Stroll was as high as P4 on Friday, and Alonso took note.

“Yesterday in FP2 he was a little bit different in setup,” he said. “And I tried it this morning, it was a little bit better, but still, this morning, I was not in a happy place with the car.

“And just now in qualifying, I put a good lap in Q1 at the end, and a good lap now in Q2, and thanks to that, I’m P11, but I’m aware that tomorrow is going to be a tricky race. It been a challenging weekend, so I don’t expect tomorrow by luck I will become fast…”

He added: “I was struggling. I was changing the car upside down with setup, and the car felt the same going into qualifying, the car felt the same, and I thought it was a difficult afternoon.

“So we managed to be P11, which is a good result, but I’m concerned for tomorrow, no doubt.”

Alonso has scored points in the last two races, and with a Sauber and an Alpine ahead of him on the grid he does at least have a chance to fight for the top 10.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “Let’s see. Especially the Alpine, they’ve been up and down, sometimes they are fast, sometimes not. I think in FP2 long run, I was behind Gasly and I was a little bit faster. So maybe our race pace is a little bit better than Alpine.

“But you never know. I think the moment we need to be clever on the strategy. Tomorrow is going to be very tight.

“A lot of DRS trains in the race, and you need to choose if you want to be in that DRS train and kill the tyres a little, but keep the pace, or you want to separate a little bit and breathe some clean air. So that will be the decision we need to make tomorrow.”

The Imola weekend was one of mixed fortunes for Fernando Alonso and his Aston Martin Formula 1 team after the promise of a brilliantly executed qualifying session was followed by a race of frustration.

With pit stop timing working against him and sending him down the order Alonso used team radio to call himself the unluckiest driver in the world, while also suggesting that the rest of the race would be “torture” for him.

On the plus side a major AMR25 upgrade package that Lance Stroll trialled on Friday and that Alonso took on Saturday worked well. The team then took a bold step for qualifying by focussing throughout on the C5 medium tyre, which others suspected might work better than the C6, but were hesitant to use.

While George Russell also took that route in Q3 Aston used mediums throughout, with Alonso Stroll progressing through the three sessions in P3/P4, P6/P7, and P5/P8 – way better than recent form suggested was likely, even with the upgrade boost.

In the early laps Alonso maintained his fifth place behind Russell and Norris before an early stop dropped him back. Like others who took that route it didn’t pay off as a VSC gave a free stop to rivals.

In addition while most of those who stopped early cut their losses and went for a second stop under the VSC, Alonso and Stroll stayed out on old rubber – and paid the price as they slipped down the order.

The full safety car later in the race at least gave them both a chance for a cheap change to new tyres, but it was too late.

Alonso made some passes and recovered to 11^th, but he missed the points. It’s the first time since the dire 2015 season with McLaren that he hasn’t scored in his first seven outings of the year, and this time you can throw in two sprint races as well.

“The car was very strong today,” he said when I asked him about his race. “We started strong, and then I could follow Norris and Russell. Actually, Russell was a little bit slower than both of us. So I had to pinch myself that I was in the in the front part of the field and that competitive.

“And then we did a stop. We were okay, I think, to secure P6/P7 today with both cars. And then the virtual safety car obviously gave the opportunity to stop for free for the people that didn’t at that point. And they left the pits just in front of us already with newer tyres.

“And the race was over. So yeah, I think in 100 scenarios of the race, 99 were okay for us to score strong points for the team today, one was not, and it did happen. But let’s hope for other races that maybe we don’t deserve the points and we do score because of luck, but today I think it’s a little bit unfair.

“It was just the wrong time, the wrong moment for us, and at the wrong place.”

So should he have stopped under the VSC like Aston’s immediate rivals?

“I mean, I was out of the points. So it’s difficult to really make decisions at that time. And even at the end, I think the car was super strong, because in nine laps I overtook three cars, Nico, Lawson, Gasly.

“Our normal midfield group, they were very slow compared to us today, which is a very good sign for us, but with no points.”

It’s been a tricky year so far for Alonso, with everything that could go wrong going wrong when he perhaps had a sniff of the points.

“The whole season has been incredible, if I look back,” he said. “Australia, I felt strong. I had fire on the brakes [in China] when I was P11 at the start. And then there were three cars disqualified in Bahrain. In Miami, we didn’t stop for dry tyres.

“Today we have finally a strong car that we can score points on merit for the first time. And there is this virtual safety car. It was not virtual safety cars when we were P12, P13 in all the seven races.

“And in general as you know, my career has been always, on the on the bad part. And people that had a very average weekend, they are still top five.”

With Stroll finishing a lowly 15^th the lack of points was frustrating for the whole Aston Martin camp after the promise of Saturday.

“It would have been wonderful to get a point today,” said team principal Andy Cowell. “Until the VSC, we were hoping and fighting for both cars to get points. But in this industry, you’ve got to go chasing after everything. You’ve got to make the race car quicker.

“You’ve got to make the pit stops better. You’ve got to make the detail of everything better, and then you’re not relying on good or bad luck, you’re just relying on an awesome machine and an awesome team. So that’s what we’ve got to strive towards.”

On the plus side the qualifying performance was genuine, and the indications are that there was a a positive correlation between the track and the new wind tunnel, something that the team was seeking with the upgrade package.

The successful call to use the medium tyres was also a confidence boost for a team that has been somewhat on the ropes of late.

“Being in Q3 with both cars, Fernando fifth, is a huge reward for all the hard work that this team’s been putting in,” said Cowell when I asked him about the tyre strategy.

“So yes, the mood shoots up. Picking either the soft or the medium was something that was being debated from Thursday even, as people were traveling here, exactly the way to play out. The car was quick on the soft as well as the medium in qualifying, a little bit quicker on the medium.

“But I think that the setup, the package, the understanding of the package, which is down to good wind tunnel data, good driver in the loop simulator work, do good preparation work before getting to the track. So it’s lifting all of those aspects up that’s helped this weekend.”

It remains to be seen how much the upgrade package helps at other tracks – and Monaco will be the first test.