Fernando Alonso identifies reason behind Aston Martin resurgence
Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll were both in the mix during Q3 at the Hungaroring.
Aston Martin was in the mix in Q3 in Hungary, with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll both within sight of pole position.
While McLaren looked set to have qualifying all to themselves on Saturday at the Hungaroring, a more competitive Q3 than expected saw Aston Martin enter the mix as both its drivers finished just a tenth off pole position.
Fernando Alonso: Track characteristics suiting Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were knocked out in 19th and 20th places, respectively, in last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
Fast forward seven days to the very different Hungaroring, and the same two drivers have taken fifth and sixth places, respectively, for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
With the grid showing up with practically the same cars, with only a littering of minor upgrades across the 10 teams, the huge turnaround in performance saw Alonso finish just 0.109 seconds from pole position, earned by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Stroll was just a further 0.017 seconds behind, underlining the huge improvement.
But what made Aston Martin so quick on Saturday, given the static nature of the field compared to a week previous? The difference, Alonso suspects, is purely down to the high-downforce requirements of the Hungaroring, negating the dragginess of the car, which was on full display at the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps.
“Track characteristics, to be honest,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com, when asked for his thoughts on why the big change in form.
“We didn’t change the car massively since Spa seven days ago, no new parts for anybody at this race.
“Just the layout, the characteristics of the circuit, is suiting our car, apparently.
“It would be nice to understand this, why the car is operating in this sweet spot here because, if we understand that, we can use it in the next few races.”
Alonso and Stroll start ahead of usually front-running cars such as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, and the Spaniard suspects it “will be difficult” to stay ahead of his fellow World Champions.
“I would like if we can finish in the same positions as we start, fifth and sixth will be lovely in terms of points for the team before the summer break – that will be the first target,” he said.
“If we can recover any places, it would be good. But I think we need to understand as well that there are some threats from behind, some fast cars – Max and Lewis are behind, so it’s not going to be easy.”
Alonso sat out first practice on Friday due to a complaint from a minor muscular injury picked up at Spa, handing his car over to Felipe Drugovich for FP1.
Having returned to the car for the rest of the weekend, Alonso smiled when asked whether he was glad to have fought through any lingering aches and pains to be behind the wheel.
“I’m glad, obviously – when the car is a little bit faster, you will not enjoy watching TV!” he said.
“Probably I would enjoy watching Spa if I was about to miss that race!
“But you never know. I got hurt a little bit in the Spa race with the seat, and have this torn muscle fibre or something like that.
“So that needs a little bit of relaxation. I have four weeks after tomorrow [Sunday] and and I will enjoy summer a little bit, relaxing and recovering.”
With Alonso running a previous-spec floor on his AMR25, the two-time F1 World Champion explained that there’s no concern that more recently-introduced floors have taken the team in the wrong direction.
“No question mark,” he said.
“I’m quite happy, and I feel the team is happy with all the upgrades we brought this year.
“The Imola floor, the Silverstone floor, and the front wing at Spa – all three of them, they were just delivering exactly what we were hoping for, and what we saw in the wind tunnel. So the correlation is very good.
“It’s true that for some circuits and some speeds, some floors can work in a different way, and some will be better in certain circuits, and some in another.
“I think we put the fastest car possible on track every weekend.”
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