Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso were given their own set of team orders to follow at the Hungarian Grand Prix
Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix was dominated by questions over team orders, potential tension among teammates, and concerns over where a certain team goes from here.
Of course, we are talking about Aston Martin.
Yes, how McLaren handled things between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris captured the early headlines, but over at Aston Martin, similar issues over a set of team orders late in the race have surfaced. Both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were running on the fringe of the points late in the race, with Alonso in tenth and Stroll just behind him in P11.
But with Stroll on fresher tires, Alonso was told that if he could not catch Tsunoda, he would swap positions with Stroll to let his teammate try and run down the Visa Cash App RB F1 Team driver with his fresher rubber. “Fernando, we’ve got one more lap to close up on Tsunoda, but if not, we’re going to give Lance a chance,” said Alonso’s Race Engineer Chris Cronin. “Seven laps to go. Seven.”
Alonso was also told that if Stroll could not get to Tsunoda, the position would be given back.
“[W]e will swap back if he doesn’t get in,” added Cronin. “We will swap back.”
On the other side of the pit wall Stroll was being advised regarding the tactics. “Fernando will give you DRS, we’ll go past him into turn one and then we need to get Tsunoda,” Race Engineer Andrew Vizard informed him. “Everything to get Tsunoda now, otherwise we will swap back at the end of the race,” Vizard added.
While Stroll cut into Tsunoda’s advantage, he never got in position to attempt an overtake. When the final lap came, Vizard reminded Stroll that he needed to give the position back.
“This is the final lap,” reminded Vizard. “So if you don’t get him now, you need to switch back and pull the line. Fernando’s four seconds behind you, there’s no pressure behind. I suggest you drop back and let Fernando pass. He’s four seconds back.”
However, Stroll did not reply and took the checkered flag in tenth position.
Neither driver addressed the set of team orders following the race but talked about other strategy decisions implemented during the race.
“Unfortunately we missed out on the points today and didn’t quite optimise our race. We pitted quite early and from that point on we had quite a long race ahead managing the [tires],” said Alonso. “It’s the first long-distance we’ve done with the new package, so we need to go and analyze our new updates and learn more ahead of Belgium next week.”
“It was a difficult race for us. I don’t think we optimised the strategy and we were not competitive enough,” said Stroll. “We struggled with [tire] degradation, too. We’ve got a lot of work to do as a team ahead of the next round. Spa is a very different track, so hopefully that suits our car more.”
As for why the swap was not made, Stroll likely believed that on the fresher tires, he would have caught Alonso anyway, which could be why he was reluctant to swap positions back at the end. And, of course, we are talking about P10 and the final point on offer.
Not something bigger.
