Aston Martin driver, Fernando Alonso recently shared his thoughts on the team’s performance following a challenging 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix where he finished 11th.
The race saw Alonso start P7, moving up a spot at the start. After early pit stops shook up the midfield order, Alonso found himself battling through the pack. He made a noteworthy pass on Nico Hülkenberg for 11th place, demonstrating his racing acumen. As the race progressed, Alonso continued to push, but he ultimately finished P11 as teammate Lance Stroll had fresher tyres in the last stint.
Reflecting on the team’s strategy and boxing so early that put him in traffic behind the Haas driver, Alonso acknowledged room for improvement. “Obviously, we analysed everything on Monday, how the race went and what we could have done differently. It’s very easy always after the race to change things and to optimise everything.
“I think if we have the same situation in the future or we have a possibility in the future to do a different strategy or to understand the race in a different way, we will do.
“In Hungary maybe we were not optimal, especially on my car. We probably lost 9th from Tsunoda but hopefully we will get better here.”
Despite the challenges, Alonso expressed optimism about Aston Martin’s latest upgrades, stating, “It responded well. I think we are quite happy with how the new package worked in Hungary. It is doing what the wind tunnel was saying and we had a very good correlation.”
It was very important after a few of the upgrades that we were a bit more up and down. I think the team is quite happy with Budapest.
“Not forgetting that this is only the first step and we are still a long way from where we want to be.
“Now that it seems that we found a path and we see on track what we see on the wind tunnel, maybe it’s easier for us to add downforce now without any fear of not seeing on track.”
When asked about the end of the race and whether he expected teammate Lance Stroll to swap positions, Alonso’s response was candid. “No, it was not a topic,” he said.
“For one second the radio message was, you will get back the position, two laps to the end or whatever. But then I was seeing that they were fighting.
“At one point I was even close to saying, ‘don’t worry about the position’, because you never know until the last corner. And then it was not happening, and I understood that he was fighting with Tsunoda until the last corner. We didn’t even talk in the briefing, to be honest.”
Looking ahead, Alonso’s motivation for the remainder of the season is clear.
“I want to be in the top part of the midfield, just behind the top four teams. And then slowly maybe close that gap to the top four teams.”
