Lance Stroll had little patience and even fewer answers after a bruising Saturday in Mexico City, firing a pointed “ask them” at why Aston Martin’s weekend promise evaporated by qualifying.
Both green cars looked lively on Friday at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — Fernando Alonso was eighth, Stroll sneaked into the top 10 — only for the floor to fall away 24 hours later. Alonso bowed out in Q2 with P12, while Stroll’s AMR was nowhere in Q1, down in 19th.
“It just goes backwards over the weekend,” Stroll said, blunt as you like. “No grip. In practice there’s good grip, then you come into qualifying and there’s just no grip.” When pressed on why the team’s form slides from Friday to Saturday, he shrugged the question off: “I don’t have all the answers… maybe you should go ask them.”
Alonso saw it coming. He’d cautioned on Friday that Aston’s time sheets tend to flatter early and bite later. “We’ve been in the top five on Fridays at the last few grands prix and it’s never the real picture,” he said, before it all played out again. Come Saturday, others found time. Aston Martin didn’t.
Mexico has been a serial headache for this team. Alonso didn’t dress it up: “It’s always like that here for us. We were last in 2023, last in 2024, and now we’re struggling in 2025 — there’s something we still don’t understand about this place.” His gaze, like a lot of Aston’s, is drifting toward 2026. “Let’s see next year if Adrian understands more.”
Adrian, of course, being Newey. He arrived in March but his hands are said to be on the revolutionary 2026 project rather than firefighting the current car. That doesn’t help the weekends where Aston’s pace arc looks all too familiar: upbeat Friday, fading Saturday, damage limitation on Sunday.
It leaves Aston staring at the same old story in the Constructors’ fight. The team is scrapping to reel in Racing Bulls for sixth, but Alonso’s not expecting charity points unless the first lap turns wild. “Without any anomaly, we don’t deserve points because we’re not at the pace of the top ten,” he said. “But the first three corners here are very tight, too narrow for 20 cars. If there’s anything to gain there, we’ll give it everything. The start will be key for everyone — points, podiums, even the win.”
Therein lies the frustration. The AMR has speed in its pockets, just not when it pays. Short runs early in the weekend hint at a car in the window; as conditions ramp up and the track grips in, Aston appears to fall out of it. Stroll’s “no grip” refrain echoed a broader theme this season: the knife-edge operating range that Alonso has managed to tiptoe around more often than not, while Stroll too often finds the cliff.
This wasn’t a one-off altitude ambush or a setup gamble gone wrong — at least that’s how Alonso framed it. Mexico’s been a blind spot for three years running. And while Newey’s name now hovers over every Aston debrief like a promise, the reality is different. The 2025 car is largely baked. The quick fixes are marginal. The big answers are pencilled in for a rules reset that’s still a year away.
Short term, it’s about extracting something on Sunday. Alonso from P12 has a shot if he survives Turn 1 and the braking contest into the chicane. Stroll’s P19 makes that a taller order, but chaos is currency here. If fortune swings, Aston needs to be standing there with a clean front wing.
The mood, though, was telling. Alonso sounded resigned; Stroll, exasperated. The team’s Friday glow keeps drawing them back in, only for qualifying to show a harsher truth. Until Aston Martin figures out why that window closes when it matters, Saturdays will keep writing the headline — and it won’t be a flattering one.
