Fernando Alonso has warned Aston Martin that they may soon have to start looking over their shoulders, should McLaren continue their impressive recent form.
Since introducing a sizeable upgrades package at the Austrian Grand Prix, the Woking-based team have been significantly quicker than Aston Martin.
It was the same story last weekend at the British Grand Prix, where McLaren introduced further upgrades.
This simply made McLaren even quicker, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having qualified second and third.
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Norris went on to finish second at the Silverstone International Circuit, whereas Alonso had to settle for seventh.
McLaren are certainly on the rise, whilst Aston Martin’s progress has come to a halt.
As a result, Alonso has stressed that his side need to “keep an eye” on McLaren, despite having a 122-point advantage over them currently.
“They are very fast but they are a lot of points behind, so we should have enough space to keep the distance to them,” Alonso said after the British GP, as reported by The Mirror.
“It is not that they will always be in the points, we are dividing all the points between us so it is difficult to have a big run on anyone.
“With McLaren, in the constructors’, we have enough of an advantage but obviously, we need to keep an eye. On Mercedes and Ferrari, it is going to be tight until the end.”
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack has insisted that the team won’t “give up” despite their recent poor performances, which have largely come due to many now expecting more from the Silverstone-based side.
Even if Aston Martin do fall down the table slightly, Krack is insistent that 2023 is still a “very respectable” season for the team, who’ve claimed six podiums from the opening 10 races.
“This season is already a very respectable one, if you see where we came from,” Krack told the media, including The Mirror.
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“We have six podiums in 10 races and even if it was six in 22, it would still be a respectable season compared to where we came from and what our targets for the season were. But we will not give up.
“We need to not get deviated too much by single events and wait for three or four races to see where we are, over a rolling average. Before the [summer] shutdown we will then have a better representation of where we are and this will also allow us to define, from the raised expectations, where we have to go.
“We also have to consider that we have a lot of races coming with track that have very different characteristics to the previous ones. The calendar is such that you have the lower downforce races in the beginning and there are races to come where maybe we can be better. These are all things we have to see based on the analysis of the next three.”