Alonso highlights the 'miracle' of finishing 11th with this Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso does not hide his dissatisfaction with the car provided by Aston Martin this year. The tough price to be competitive in 2026 means enduring a 2025 where finishing 11th, like in Japan, can be considered a divine intervention, to the point where he doubts it can be repeated unless something unusual happens ahead.

"We are not fast enough for the top-10, not even for the top-18. Finishing 11th was almost... a miracle. It was a very demanding race for us, we didn't have the pace overall. We are in a spiral we need to escape from, although if two or three cars are disqualified now, we will score points..." he remarked with some sarcasm.

Regarding the lack of action on track, Alonso also emphasised that this should not surprise anyone at this stage and on this circuit. "This is Suzuka, I don't remember races in the past where we saw many overtakes without weather changes. We always repeat how fantastic Monaco or Suzuka is, but on Sunday we say they are boring races. Maybe with one stop it wasn't so fun, in the past with multiple stops there were tyre differences. Although when we lack grip we complain and when we stop many times, we say the tyres don't last. Instead of protesting, we should enjoy," he urged, with some exasperation.

Returning to his immediate future, he calls for improvements. "We struggle to be in Q3, in fact, we haven't been there yet, and in the race also to be in the top-10. In Bahrain, we will have another opportunity after the winter tests to learn from the first three races and I hope we can continue developing the car," he said, before praising—for the second time this weekend—Verstappen's great performance. "He won four titles so he can fight with a slightly less competitive car. People are not aware of how difficult it is to have perfect grand prix weekends. It reminds me of my 2012, with a car that wasn't so good and we fought for the title," he recalled about his battles against Vettel, precisely in Red Bull.

Carlos Sainz was not at all satisfied with his result in Suzuka, not so much because he couldn't improve it, but because of how he has been stuck almost from the start.

"The pace was there, it was good and I felt comfortable, but when you start 15th and get stuck behind Lawson," he admitted. "Until the second stint, I couldn't pass him and that's when I could show more of my pace. We need to learn not to fail on Saturday with silly details, like the one that cost me Q3 and then the penalty. Once we solve those details, we can start having more complete, cleaner weekends and score points," he asserted.

In a race where "to overtake you had to invent something unusual," Sainz insisted on looking inward: "You are not going to score points starting 15th." In any case, he is not overwhelmed by the circumstances surrounding this challenging start with Williams. "I focus on the positives, we still need to improve certain things to feel more comfortable with the car and make the weekends easier. We are heading in the right direction," he noted, before confessing the serious hardships he now faces compared to his years at Ferrari. "It's a matter of doing laps, here we came with only one new front wing. You can't risk much at the start. I'm taking it a bit easy so that the races go by and I gain experience," he promised.