In two consecutive races at least one car has started from the pitlane as the team has attempted to learn more about its current problems. And in two consecutive races, Fernando Alonso has retired due to floor damage that was outside his control.
Meanwhile, at almost every venue Lance Stroll has lost priceless track time in practice to gremlins of one sort or another.
His ongoing bad luck was somehow summed up in FP2 in Mexico, when a front wheel nut got stuck. The old-school solution was for a mechanic to bash it with a hammer until it finally budged, a process that looked so primitive that the crew formed a free-kick wall at the front of the garage to prevent the TV cameras from broadcasting it to the world.
Having led the pursuit of Red Bull at several of the early races of 2023, Aston has fallen behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren since the summer break.
Third in the championship standings as recently as mid-September after the stellar first half of his season, Alonso has now slipped down to fifth place.
He is resigned to the likes of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and George Russell demoting him over the next three race weekends.
The package of updates introduced for the US GP was supposed to put the team back on track and allow it to keep pace in the development race.
However, the COTA sprint format meant that the team struggled to optimise its cars in FP1, and the revised AMR23 was so under par in the Saturday sprint that it was deemed worth taking a punt on dropping out of parc ferme for Sunday.
Both cars started from the pitlane, with two different aero packages, and tweaked suspension settings.
Source: Autosport