I think the driver issue is the elephant in the room with Aston. Lance obviously is shite, but Alonso as well is a bit passed it. He may be decent now* but is he going to still be at the height of his game in two/three years time when Newey’s changes have time to take effect? They just have one of the weakiest line-ups of the whole field.
* It’s very difficult to tell how good Alonso is these days, as he does not have a teammate to compare him against. At Alpine he didn’t exactly wipe the floor with Ocon, in fact he was beaten by the Frenchman in their second year.