Aston Martin had a disappointing race at their home Grand Prix, having a difficult weekend. It was clear they lacked fundamental pace, with Fernando Alonso finishing the race in seventh position, far from his performance earlier in the season where he was fighting for podiums.
Photo credit: Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team
On the surprising drop in performance, he told the media: “We were not fast enough; in any session of the weekend, so we were not different in the race; we struggled a little bit with the pace, we maximised the strategy, we tried to stretch the sprint on the mediums in the beginning, then the safety car, we chose the softs because it was a short run in the end and I think it was a good strategy, and thanks to all of those calls, we took seventh place that maybe is a little bit higher than the pace that we had.
“As we said yesterday, probably it’s a little bit of everything, out-developed a little bit in terms of a few teams brought some significant upgrades lately.
“I think it was track-specifichere, it was not our best layout for the package that we have.
“We need to see also the tyres, obviously it was the first race that we had this new construction, so things that we maybe have to analyse more in detail.
“All in all, I think we save a difficult weekend. Hopefully in Hungary we are again competitive.”
The British Grand Prix also saw Mercedes and its customer team, Mclaren climb up the rankings, with Lando Norris on the second step of the podium, followed by Lewis Hamilton in third place.
Alonso wasn’t surprised about Hamilton passing him early in the race as the Mercedes had been quicker all throughout the event. The two-time World Champion hopes for better in Hungary after three difficult races in the last four.
“They’ve been quicker all weekend, so when he was behind I knew that he was not worth spending too much time defending and he had more pace, they were fast this weekend. Happy to see Lando as well on the podium with Lewis; let’s see in Hungary if we can come back to our normal pace.”
