Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin Formula 1 team-mate Lance Stroll is missing luck rather than pace after two non-scores in recent races.

Stroll finds himself 66 points behind Alonso in the drivers’ championships having finished 12th in Miami and retiring in Monaco after a brush with the barriers during the wet conditions.

This dip in form for Stroll has been compounded by Alonso’s ongoing run of podium finishes since he moved to Aston Martin in 2023, with his second place finish in Monaco his fifth top-three finish in six races.

But while the points gap between the pair is the biggest out of all the team-mate pairings on the grid, Alonso felt bad luck had overshadowed Stroll’s performance so far this season.

“He has been very unlucky the last two events,” Alonso said, as quoted by The Race.

“If we go back to Bahrain, driving with one hand [after an off-season injury] he was very fast. Then Jeddah he had the exhaust problem when he was in front of the Ferraris in P5.

“Then in Miami we were risking too much probably in Q1 [by using just one set of tyres] and that compromised the race. In Monaco the debris from Lando’s car, the McLaren, completely compromised the whole weekend.

“Obviously this put the headlines, very easy to be hard on that.”

Aston Martin remains second in the constructors’ championship after Alonso’s Monaco heroics, but it now sits just one point ahead of Mercedes.

The Silverstone-based outfit is relying on Stroll to bring home points on a regular basis if it is to keep hold of its place for the rest of the year, but Alonso believes the Canadian is doing everything right to contribute to the team’s tally.

“If you see the whole weekend, in Monaco in FP3, he was within one tenth and a half of the fastest,” Alonso added.

“He is providing the right feedback, info about strategy and everything.

“So I really hope for him that he has more luck because I don’t think he is missing any pace. Just opportunistic moments that were not on his side.”

Stroll was refusing to dwell too much over whether luck had evaded him in recent events, insisting his focus was on chasing a strong result this weekend.

“Things happen in racing,” he said.

“It’s just how it goes, there’s good weekends and bad weekends, and like every other weekend I’m just coming into this one trying to get the most out of it.”