Alonso provides latest Aston Martin and Honda assessment after Dutch GP

Fernando Alonso said it was “another step forward” in his latest assessment of the Aston Martin package following his two points in Zandvoort.

Alonso recorded the team’s best result of the season with a P9 in Zandvoort and the Spaniard was optimistic about what could be achieved in the future.

Fernando Alonso reflects on Aston Martin package

Alonso squeezed every inch of life out of his soft tyres to finish within the points and when asked how the Aston car was looking, he suggested the team were able to fine tune upgrades that were installed on the car in Hungary.

“I think another step forward, especially on the chassis side,” he said. “We brought four or five components here. Also, the Budapest package was understood in the break, and with all the data available after the race, we can fine-tune the setup a little bit around that new spec, plus the new parts.

“I think now we are optimising the chassis height, and we are able to extract the maximum.

“The engine is more difficult. I don’t think we can be black and white on if we have more power or not from the driver side of things. You change circuit one month after the other race.

“On the drivability, it has been a difficult weekend. We’re struggling with the downshift again and we’re struggling with the engine braking corner to corner, so it was a challenging weekend in that regard.”

Asked if his P9 was a fair reflection of the Aston pace, Alonso suggested it was given Max Verstappen had DNFed.

“I think so. I think we scored one point in Monaco with nine DNFs, and today we scored two points with Max DNF. So I think it was well deserved.

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“Probably in Budapest we could have done a little bit better and it will depend circuit by circuit, depending how many straights we have.

“So I don’t expect Monza to be competitive but maybe in some other circuits we have another chance to win the points.”

Alonso also revealed he had radio issues throughout the race with him not being able to hear the team and the team not being able to hear him.

“I couldn’t hear them, apparently, they couldn’t hear me, which it was a good news sometimes!

“The strategy was clear, but some of the blue flags, overtaking manoeuvres that we have to defend, these kind of things were frustrating at times.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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