Following an intermission from racing of just under 4 weeks, the Aston Martin team travelled more than 11,680 miles from Singapore, via the UK, to Austin, Texas, renowned as the Live Music Capital of the World, for the final quarter of the 2024 season. Given the long interlude all the teams had been allowed to work on development of the cars and Aston Martin had brought a number of upgrades for the AMR24s, including a new front wing, front wing endplate, engine cover, floor body, floor edge & diffuser. It would soon be revealed how well these would work as this race weekend would be one that would include a Sprint as well, so it would be hammer-time from the get-go.
In the first and only practice session on Friday, the 2 drivers followed similar strategies to get as much testing done and data obtained. Starting on the hard compound tyres the driver’s lap times looked solid, with Alonso going 14th and Stroll 15th on their early runs. They then switched to the softs and their positions improved initially, with Alonso going 7th and Stroll 11th. But then, once all the drivers had put on soft tyres, in order to test their one-lap pace and with a bit more track evolution at the end of the session, the Aston Martins finished with Alonso in P9 & Stroll P15. With just that 1 hour of practice under their belt, the drivers returned to the track in their cars a few hours later to take part in Qualifying for the Sprint Race. Alonso and Stroll were the last 2 drivers out on track in the 12-minute first round. Alonso, impressively, placed himself in P5 initially, but with 5 mins to go, had dropped to 7th, with Stroll one place behind. On their final runs, both AMs got securely through to the next round, with Stroll slotting into P7 & Alonso P10. It looked promising. In the 2nd round it looked like both AMs would only make 1 run, as with 5 mins to go both cars were still in the garage. With less than 3 mins left both cars came out on a mission to haul themselves out of the elimination zone. It wasn’t to be. Both drivers didn’t have the performance to get into the top 10 and, to add insult to injury, they both had their lap times deleted for exceeding track limits. They would have been 14th & 15th but Lawson also had his time deleted & as he was going to take an engine penalty, requiring him to start at the back of the grid, it meant that Stroll would start the Sprint race 13th & Alonso 14th. At the front, Verstappen had a return to form & would start from pole, followed by Russell & Leclerc.
Given their low starting positions, there wasn’t much expectation of a points finish for the 2 Aston Martins, which are only given to the top 8 finishers. Consequently, the focus was switched to use the Sprint race to learn more about optimising the set-up of the updated package for the main race. On the 1st lap of the Sprint race, Alonso lost places after getting tapped by the advancing Piastri, necessitating an undesired drive through the gravel & dropping him to 16th. Stroll managed to make up a place though, to 12th & by lap 5, he was within a second of Colapinto, but wasn’t able to make a pass, ending up passed himself, by Piastri, on lap 7. Meanwhile, Alonso was passed by Ocon & Lawson. As he was attempting to pass Lawson, he misjudged it, lost places & was bumped down to 17th. At the halfway stage Stroll was P13, Alonso P17. On lap 13 Albon passed Alonso & that was for the AMs all the way to the chequered flag – Stroll finishing 13th & Alonso 18th. Verstappen was the Sprint race winner, Sainz was 2nd & Norris 3rd.
Hours later & very late in the evening UK time, the cars started to roll out onto the track for Qualifying for the main race. The Aston Martins went out on their first runs & Stroll placed himself in P11 & Alonso in P14. There was a claim from Hulkenberg that Stroll had impeded him, which was noted by the Stewards but no action was taken. Likewise, Lawson expressed displeasure with Alonso, with the RB driver unhappy about the Aston Martin overtaking him on their out-laps – probably spilling over from their battle in Sprint race. With 5 mins to go & on a very quickly evolving track, the Aston Martins had dropped down to 15th (Alonso) & 13th (Stroll). On their final runs Alonso managed to place himself in P10 & Stroll in P15, right on the cusp of elimination. He scraped through to the next round, no other driver having improved their final times. Alonso though, had dropped to 13th but it was enough to go through as well. In the next round, the Astons went out on their 1st runs & Stroll put his car in P5 but was soon pushed down by Ocon & then by Alonso, who went 6th fastest. By the time they’d done their warm-down lap & had returned to the garage, they had dropped down the order to 12th & 13th. Aston Martin left it to be the very last pair to go out on their final runs, which worked well for Alonso, who hauled himself up to 9th, but not for Stroll, who despite setting personal best times in the first 2 sectors only ended up 14th. In the final round, Alonso waited until all the other cars had been out on track to set their times, before he went out with 7 minutes to go onto a track that he had all to himself. He placed his AMR24 in P8, 0.979 of a second adrift of provisional pole-sitter, Norris. Minutes later, all the front-running cars went out for their final runs. Whilst on his hot lap, Russell turned into one of the corners & the rear end of his Mercedes snapped round and he crashed heavily into the barriers. This brought out the yellow flags, requiring the rest of the grid to slow down in that area, meaning that nobody else was able to improve their times. Norris would end up on pole, with Verstappen alongside him on the front row. Russell meanwhile, was taken to the medical center (we are in the US!) in the comfort of the DBX-707 medical car and was reported to be OK. There being no changes in the finishing order, Alonso qualified in 8th place.
The news that Russell would have to take a penalty for using more than the allocated number of parts following his crash the previous day & opting to start from the pit lane, moved both the AMs up a place, meaning Alonso would start from P7 & Stroll from P13 for the 56 lap race. Upfront, the 2 Championship contenders launched themselves off the start & Norris initially looked to have held the lead off the line, but the McLaren went side-by-side with Verstappen into the first corner, which led to the McLaren driver being pushed wide, allowing Leclerc to sneak through & snatch P1, while Sainz put himself 3rd ahead of Norris. Alonso had a poor start up the steep incline & dropped down to 10th, while Stroll kept himself 13th initially & even moved up a place when, quite uncharacteristically, Hamilton spun his Mercedes off track and beached it in the gravel on lap 3, putting him out of the running. The Aston Martin Vantage safety car was deployed & the cars had to bunch up & follow it for a couple of laps. When the race got back underway Lawson snatched P12 from Stroll & in the course of defending he got off the track slightly, over a kerb, got his tyres on the gravel, meaning he had no traction & he lost 6 places, down to 19th. He very quickly composed himself & retook Ocon & a couple of laps later he passed Zhou for P17. Slightly further ahead though, first Hulkenberg passed Alonso & then Lawson did the same on lap 11, meaning Alonso was P12, Stroll P17. 5 laps later Stroll passed Albon, then Russell passed Alonso on the following lap, meaning that the AMs were lying P13 (Alonso) & P15 (Stroll). As the pit stop window opened up, the Astons progressed slightly up the order, as drivers ahead came in for fresh tyres. By lap 19, Alonso was back up to P10, Stoll P13. But it wasn’t for long. With the benefit of fresh tyres Colapinto in a Williams passed Alonso on lap 23 & Stroll lost a place to Magnussen. Alonso came in for his pit stop on lap 27 & came out 18th. Stroll was back up to 13th, battling it out with Albon & Gasly, but he came in for his fresh tyres on the next lap & came out 19th. At the halfway stage, Alonso was 17th, Stroll 19th. On lap 31 Stroll was able to gain a place back & when Ocon & then Albon came into the pits, it allowed Alonso to move up to 15th & Stroll to 17th. Alonso made further gains when he passed Bottas on lap 35 & then profited from Tsunoda spinning. With just 10 laps to go the AMs were 13th & 16th after Stroll passed Bottas. While all the action was upfront, with a titanic battle going on between Verstappen & Norris for the final podium position, Stroll had gained a further place, from Albon. Whilst the Ferraris made it a 1-2 and Norris finished 3rd, he received a 5-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, which dropped him down 4th & promoted Verstappen onto the podium. Disappointingly, both Aston Martins finished out of the points, with Alonso, having started 7th, finishing 13th & Stroll 15th.
After the race, Alonso was acknowledged for getting his AMR24 to qualify much higher up the grid than the true pace of the car displayed. His comments were, "It was a tough race for us today and we dropped back places from our starting position. I think we outperformed the car's natural position in Qualifying and we knew it would be an uphill battle to stay inside the top 10. It's been a difficult weekend and we have lots to analyse over the next few days to get better for Mexico." Stroll’s comments were, " We lacked pace compared to other cars today. I had a bit of messy restart with a snap at Turn 10 but I think that, even without that snap, the result would have been the same. The car didn't have the performance for us to fight for positions."
F1 is immediately off to Mexico City, which is next weekend, 25–27th October. It will be a normal race weekend & I’ll provide another report after the race.