🇮🇹 F1'25, R07: Veteran Move

The sudden rise and then continued gradual fall of Aston Martin and in particular, Fernando Alonso has not been an easy watch.

On paper, everything looks set up for the green team to be fighting towards the front of the grid. There is a fantastic set up and investment into wind tunnels and all the good stuff from billionaire Lawrence Stroll, so you know the lights are going to be on in the morning. He’s combined heritage with innovation, and then they signed the ace in the aerodynamic pack.

Adrian Newey. A genius who has forgotten more than most people know about applying creative aerodynamics in a creative way, even the man’s head is streamlined. With 2025 being a poor year for the Team, it has been made clear that Newey is not involved in this year’s car and that all his energy is being focused on 2026 and beyond.

But Newey is not the only elite-level employee in the building.

No strangers to multiple-time World Champions in their ranks, they signed Fernando Alonso and put him at the forefront of the team’s charge, while mentoring the boss’ son Lance in the background.

They have a creative fan engagement programme, and enhanced it with limited edition drops, combining one British icon with another in Aston Martin and the Rolling Stones.

In short, this team is built to win, if not now, then from 2026. So why are they not reliably collecting points now?

Aston Martin came away with zero points after Imola, and this is comfortably the worst start they’ve made to the season in the Alonso era. It is a far cry from 2023, when while Red Bull were streaking away, Alonso was a podium threat and even much-criticised Stroll was gutting out iron man points finishes after crashing his bicycle in pre-season.

But the podiums dried up in 2024, and the Team’s best results came towards the front of the season, dragging themselves to a best of the rest finish in fifth, recouping some of the millions spent.

But as 2025 started, it was Williams who are firmly fifth now, and Haas and RB look like they’re better suited to sixth and seventh than Aston. Alpine are a basket case of a team and then Sauber are rooted to the bottom, hoping that the Vorsprung Durch Technik turns them into more of a force in 2026 when Cadillac add yet more motoring heritage to the grid.

There are three big questions for Aston Martin to consider.

How do you keep the star driver happy at the promise of jam tomorrow when he’s already in his twilight?

Promising Fernando Alonso that 2026 will be better is a risky gambit. Certainly after Imola he might be thinking that it can’t get any worse. But even in 2024 I thought he looked ready to move on. Way, way back when in the pre-Hamilton to Ferrari days, I had predicted that he would move back to his old team for one last run at the title.

And the snippy radio messages are starting to kick in. A problem child at 43, Alonso is moving from “hey, tell Lance to try this engine mode” to “I’m the unluckiest driver in the world” – we are probably only a couple of steps away from shouting about a GP2 engine or something similar.

It didn’t help that he was 11^th and one place away from his first point of the season, leaving him as one of three drivers still in an F1 seat to have no points yet. Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto are the other two.

Aston Martin’s challenge will be to keep him happy. They’ll need to show him that the 2026 project is worth his time and that the pain will be worth it. Win number 33 and the rest will come soon and while circulating around the back of the grid is not fun now, just wait and you’ll be flying up with your teammate.

How does the Team keep fans invested in a driver constantly accused of nepotism?

I’d previously considered the theory that a Honda engine might bring Lance Stroll’s time with the Team to an end. Perhaps Yuki Tsunoda would be touted for a switch. But if there is promise and the car is meant to be good from 2026, why would Stroll Snr lose the chance to complete his ambition and make his son a World Champion?

Lance Stroll has shown potential. A pole position in Turkey probably his crowning achievement in Aston Martin colours. But it’s difficult to think of a Lance Stroll highlight reel or even think of a notable overtake. He isn’t without race craft, but it is difficult to see him as World Champion material. You cannot be in F1 for six-seven years on the promise of potential. Eventually, it has to convert to something.

The easy way out would be for Lawrence to convince Lance to join his Endurance Racing project, convince him that he can win Le Mans and come back in a couple of years to a top team, but it still feels like a counter-intuitive thing to do.

So will fans accept it? Most F1 fans are fans of drivers over fans of teams, and as the season got underway, a significant number had Stroll bottom of their standings. He is proving that wrong, with a couple of points finishes providing all of Aston Martin’s 2025 points so far.

I don’t think fans will care who is in the second Aston Martin, unless one specific situation happens, one which will have more drama than the F1 film that’s coming out soon, and if you’d submitted it as a script, they’d have laughed at you.

What happens if it all comes good in 2026 and Aston Martin decide to throw team orders in to favour Lance Stroll?

In case you hadn’t noticed, all the F1 articles this season have a wrestling-related title. This is a proper wrestling storyline. There’s one title, and someone who has done it before wants it. So does the son of the boss. Who do you prioritise?

Let’s say Aston Martin roll all sixes as 2026 comes around. The new Honda engine sings, Newey finds a brilliant way to creatively interpret the new formula and the team is fighting as part of the new world order brought about by the sport’s ambitious change of formula.

But, it’s not Stroll at the front, but Alonso. An inter-team battle is among the most exciting storylines you can generate in a season, and we’ve seen how Alonso has reacted to these in the past. How either side of the garage reacts to the smallest change, those fine margins being multiplied as the narrative develops over the season, but for Lawrence Stroll at least, it’s the wrong car flying forward.

Fernando Alonso isn’t going to pass up the chance to win a third Drivers’ title, and the Strolls aren’t going to miss their opportunity to write themselves into motorsport immortality.

In some ways, question three might be the most exciting prospect. How would you solve it?

The second part of this European triple header is Monaco, but Monaco 2.0 almost. F1 will mandate that each car has to do at least two pitstops in the Principality as they try to add more strategy to a race that has become somewhat processional in recent years. Last year, despite the home winner, was a brutal watch after the red flag with most drivers not making a pit stop in normal running.

Monaco 2025 will hopefully be more exciting as the battle between the McLarens and Max Verstappen intensifies. Maybe 2025 will be the last season Aston Martin will be seen as afterthoughts in Monaco, especially in a race where anything can and has happened.