Team Principal has defended Fernando Alonso’s criticism of the team following a performance in Singapore.

Fernando Alonso’s P15 in Singapore is his first non-points finish in 2023. Alonso and Aston Martin struggled for pace all weekend, hampered by race troubles.

Qualifying was especially challenging. Lance Stroll’s stunning high-speed crash forced the withdrawal of one Aston Martin before the race even began. Alonso’s final seventh-place finish fell far short of expectations.

Although Alonso was unable to match the race’s leading pace, he was on track to finish sixth. However, a five-second penalty for crossing the white line, compounded with a catastrophic pit stop, dropped him to 15th place. Alonso was critical when speaking to the media about his evening under the lights in Singapore.

The front runners were out of reach, according to Krack, but Alonso’struggled’ on the hard tyres. This set in motion a series of circumstances that resulted in Aston Martin’s solitary car finishing at the tail of the field: “We believed we had a nice rhythm. I believe we anticipated that going with the front guys would be difficult. So I think everything went quite well on the medium.”

“Then, after the safety car, we put on the hard tyres and struggled even more; we need to figure out why.” We were worried that when the virtual safety car arrived, we wouldn’t be able to complete the journey with a reasonable degree of performance.”

“And then the sequence of events, the penalty, the pitstop all went wrong, and we ended up in a really bad position.” And that was the end of it.”

Krack stated that the team needs to “understand” its challenges in Singapore: “We really need to understand what happened,” he remarked. “We also have some damage on the car that we need to figure out how much it did.”

“We had three different tyre specifications. And Singapore is also a place where you are always stuck in traffic, which costs a lot of money and you don’t know how much others are saving or how much people are managing. As a result, this is one of the most difficult races to comprehend.”

He also stated that Alonso’s pit stop entrance issue will be rectified after Aston Martin has reviewed his car’s settings: “We need to review that.” Because there are some settings that need to be made, and he was reminded to do them. So I’ll be cautious about calling it a mistake until we’ve thoroughly investigated it.”