Fernando Alonso will start Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix from P8 on the grid. Aston Martin have slid back a little bit over the last few races — with the exception of Canada — and it’s continued in Budapest.
Photo credit: Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team
The Spaniard won his first Grand Prix at this venue 20 years ago. A repeat looks very unlikely tomorrow.
“We are one tenth from McLaren, so it’s not as bad as maybe the result looks. But yeah, we need to improve, there’s no doubt we made a step backwards in the last few races, and everyone did a step forward.”
However, the most interesting part of his post-qualifying interviews came in regards to Pirelli.
The Italian tyre manufacturer introduced a new construction of tyre at Silverstone as higher than expected loads thanks to the speed of the 2023 cars.
He explained how Aston and Red Bull have been impacted hardest from the change, while others have made big gains.
“Also it is a coincidence that when the new Pirelli tyres came in Silverstone there are a couple of teams that were struggling more, and a couple of teams that are very happy with the car now.
“It’s not only us, I think Red Bull has clearly been hit with those tyres, they’ve been one-two in every qualifying, one-two in every race, and now they are not even on pole position.
“Checo is struggling to be in the top 10. At Silverstone I think Max was only three seconds in front of Lando. So I see things a little bit abnormal since Silverstone.”
Alonso doubled down on this when speaking to TV outlets. He was clearly unhappy about how it’s shaken things up and the advantage it’s allegedly given the likes of McLaren.
“These new Pirelli tyres — no one is talking about it. We’ve lost performance out of nowhere, Red Bull isn’t dominating easily anymore, Max couldn’t get pole, McLaren is suddenly faster and Alfa Romeo too. I don’t like it when they change important things mid-season.”
The two-time World Champion said his feelings behind the wheel and how the times on the leaderboard since the change have lead him to believe they’ve made a decisive difference to things.
“Both. I think you can feel the car a little bit different with the tyres. But as I said it is difficult to sometimes to be neutral.
“Obviously, we didn’t improve the car much compared to the main competitors. We have every Thursday now the new parts for every team. So it’s very easy now to see which teams are bringing more and more parts to the grand prix.
“But if I look back to Red Bull after being first and second, in every practice, qualifying and race and now I think this weekend in none of the practice, in Silverstone he was only three seconds in front of Lando. I think Red Bull lost performance since Silverstone, that’s a fact.”
