De la Rosa: The attitude is the same, but success is more difficult

At the beginning of the season, the Aston Martin team surprised everyone, as Fernando Alonso, driving the AMR23, regularly reached the podium – the two-time world champion managed to do this six times in the first eight races.

But as everyone started to get used to it, the team’s results dropped, and although the Spaniard continued to finish in the top ten (the only exception being the Singapore Grand Prix), it was only after the Canadian stage that we saw him among the winners in the The Netherlands.

Pedro de la Rosa, a former Formula 1 driver who is Aston Martin’s official ambassador this year, tried to explain this while appearing on the F1 Nation podcast.

“You know, we still prepare for every weekend the same way, do the same things, and we always have the same expectations as we did at the beginning of the year,” he said. “At the same time, we know that competition has increased and it has become more difficult to achieve success. But let’s not forget Zandvoort, where at one point we unexpectedly even fought for victory, helped by difficult weather conditions.

In general, Aston Martin’s attitude has not changed, but we understand that the number of teams competing for places on the podium has increased, but only two or three tenths separate us all. If you manage to gain 0.2-0.3 seconds, you can already fight for the podium, but if you lose about that much, then you won’t even manage to reach the last session, for example in qualifying.

It’s nice that the level of competition is so high that the cars of four or five teams are roughly comparable in terms of speed. Let’s try to forget for a moment Max Verstappen, who is clearly dominating the championship, and remember the Singapore Grand Prix, where anyone could win. The situation in Formula 1 is approaching the point where at the end of this season and probably at the beginning of the next four or five teams will be fighting for victories.

The balance of power is affected by a combination of several factors, but everything goes so far that the capabilities of all teams are gradually equalized and the results of the entire platoon will fit in just a few tenths. And I really hope that success in this situation will again depend mainly on the skill of the rider.

I believe that we will then see that there will be a lot of demand for the drivers who can squeeze another tenner or two out of the car. This will become an increasingly important factor and will determine Formula 1 results in the future. I hope so.

This is what every racer wants: for skill to be the most important factor in the equation. “I have to admit that success now still depends more on the car.”