F1 Q&A before Monaco: McLaren, Norris, Newey, Perez, Ricciardo, Aston Martin

What has happened to Aston Martin? They were battling with Ferrari and Mercedes with Alonso in China – Ryan

Good question. Fernando Alonso qualified in the top six in four of the first five races, but has been 15th and 19th in Miami and Imola.

In Miami, Alonso felt he had gone in the wrong direction on set-up, and in Imola he compromised his weekend by crashing in final practice.

Team principal Mike Krack admitted that the car was “difficult to drive” in Imola and that the team were “on the back foot” from the moment Alonso crashed at Rivazza.

But he has also urged people not to get carried away by the most recent results. Or, as he put it after the race, borrowing a phrase from German: “Let’s keep the church in the town.”

They started the year with a car that was quick in qualifying but used its tyres too aggressively in races, forcing Alonso to fight defensive actions on Sundays.

They have been trying to address that, but at the same time have had a couple of bad weekends – or Alonso has, and he is their yardstick, as Lance Stroll is not close to his level.

Krack says that expectations were super-high after their brilliant first half of last year but he adds: “We had teams that did not do their homework last year when we did.”

This year, by contrast, McLaren and Ferrari have started the season in a strong place.

In essence, the team admit that recent updates to the car have helped, but not addressed all the issues with the car, and other teams have also brought lots of upgrades at the same time.

The car is still quite difficult to drive – as proved by Alonso, unusually, crashing in a practice session. But the team say they understand how to address those issues for the races to come. Time will tell.