Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin produced their best performance of the season so far in Miami and urged his team to keep up the pressure on Red Bull.
In a race which ran without an interruption from start to finish, Alonso finished just over 20 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
He admitted it’s “going to be difficult” for Aston Martin to close the gap to their rivals, but is hopeful they will make gains over the rest of the season.
“The gap is quite big, even though I think today has been our best race pace yet in the season,” he said. “We finished, I think, closest to the leaders. No Safety Cars, nothing in the race and we’re still quite fast. So let’s see.
“I think the season is going to be long. Hopefully some of the tracks we will be a little bit closer to them and some of the upgrades that we will bring in later in the season maybe put us in a different or more competitive position.”
Aston Martin finished seventh in the constructors’ championship last year but are second after the first five grands prix. Alonso says holding onto that position has to be their priority.
“Our main focus, to be honest, is just looking behind and trying to keep Mercedes and Ferrari in the constructors’ championship under control,” he said. “I think Red Bull, we have to accept they are doing a better job than everyone else and we need to do a better job.”
However following his fourth third-place finish so far this season Alonso admitted he’s keen to grab any opportunity to finish further up the podium.
“Obviously we want to do one step higher in the podium in P2 and eventually one day we have an opportunity to win a race,” he said. “But at the moment it didn’t happen because Red Bull is better than us, is stronger, is faster and the reliability has been always outstanding for them as well, finishing both cars in every race.
“So if one day there is a crack there, if there is an opportunity, we need to make sure that we are in that position and we’re still not making mistakes at any point in the weekend.”
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