Fernando Alonso believes a double-points finish at the British Grand Prix was a step “back to normality” for Aston Martin after a difficult run of results in Formula 1.
The British squad had scored points in each of the first six rounds of the championship, but a comprehensive upgrade introduced for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix made the AMR24 more difficult to drive.
As a result, Aston Martin only managed to score in two of the next five races, albeit with a double-points finish in Canada amid variable conditions.
Although the seventh and eighth places that the team scored mere metres down the road from its Silverstone base also came in a rain-affected race, its performance throughout the weekend suggested that the team had been assisted by a pair of upgrades.
The team had introduced a new front wing at Silverstone and reworked the aerodynamics around its rear brake ducts, which prompted Alonso – who finished eighth – to suggest that the team had moved towards its pre-Imola position.
“It was pretty good, I mean, the feeling was back to normality,” Alonso said. “We were the fifth, sixth fastest team. Nico [Hulkenberg] I think was very fast the whole weekend, but we could fight for points.
“Seventh and eighth, I think it’s more or less the positions we were in pre-Imola. We came back to our more natural position, so I’m happy for that.
“It has been better; after Austria we regrouped a little bit, we understood a couple of directions that maybe were not right. As I said, we’re happy to be back in the points, it felt more competitive.”
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
With new upgrades planned for the next two races in Hungary and Belgium, Alonso hoped that the team could show a similar trajectory to Mercedes this year or McLaren in 2023 and make a concerted step towards the top four teams.
He warned that the team needed to prove that it could make those improvements, and not to promise too much with them in case they issued similar problems to the Imola package.
“We need to prove it; we need to not talk and deliver the results,” the Spaniard added. “We’ve been bringing in a lot of new parts to the car and some of them they work, some of them they didn’t. Hopefully, in Hungary we have a positive surprise.”
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24, Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR24
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Team principal Mike Krack was careful not to draw too many conclusions from the race result, noting the clear discrepancy between the warm Austria temperatures and the wet, cool conditions at Silverstone.
He noted that the team needed to enhance its understanding from the data, and not just dine out on a successful grand prix.
“We need to first analyse because it was also not a normal race with the wet in between. We need to have a look. The ranking is better than the previous two, we don’t have to be blind to see that, but we have to analyse if the performance is better.
“We need to see what is the effect of [the new parts] and then decide how we move on.
“I think we need to be careful comparing these races. We were in Austria, it was 50-60 degree track temperature, the softest tyres, on the track, that has either very high-speed or very low-speed [corners].
“You come [to Silverstone], it’s very cold, you have the hardest tyres, so I think these are the effects that you have to isolate and separate, not that you get lost into just being driven by the ranking and the position”.
