Aston Martin: 'Our biggest problem was not the driver'

Things are not going well at Aston Martin. Not for weeks. In the United States, the first signs of recovery were visible and we saw bouts of what the British formation is capable of. According to top man Tom McCullough, the fact that Aston Martin has not been doing as well as it should have been lately and that it is scoring little to no points has nothing to do with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

"I think what we’ve seen from both our drivers is that, if we give them a good car, if we operationally execute well at a weekend, if they don’t have any unfortunate circumstances, they can get us good points. Our main issue hasn’t been the drivers this year: our issues have been not always delivering a strong-enough car and, sometimes, having a failure here, a strategy decision there. A Qualifying risk her and there that has backfired on us," he said.

This year, Fernando Alonso succeeded multiple world champion Sebastian Vettel. "Fernando is new to the team. He’s a force of nature, some of you have worked with him before, but he's been fantastic. He’s pushing us. He’s so motivated. He’s so understanding that it’s hard, doing what we’re doing. It’s not easy developing a car in Formula 1 against some very good teams, and he has been amazing."

Stroll knew bad luck

"I obviously didn’t know him before but you work closely with him and his ability to sense the car, to tell you what’s good. Keeping calm, as well. I thought it could get harder than it has done. But he’s been fantastic," McCullough said. "Lance we obviously know well, we’ve known him for the last few seasons. He was really on the backfoot at the start of the year. When the car was competitive, he was scoring the points. He's had, and it’s easy to say ‘bad luck’, but right from race three, when he’s having an exhaust failure, and not getting the points he deserved there. There’s been quite a few circumstances again recently."

At Suzuka, there was also more in store for the Canadian, but he was hampered by a faulty rear wing. "In Suzuka, we had a rear wing failure, nothing he’s doing wrong, but at the end of the day on the days when the car’s been able to score good points, he’s often not been able to do that, which has not really been down to him, so we know if we give either of our drivers a good car, they’ll get us the points."

Stroll will start Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix third, Fernando Alonso will do so fourth.