Alonso wants Aston Martin to understand the increase in Aston Martin’s performance in Hungary | Racer

Fernando Alonso says that Aston Martin must analyze the differences between the last two versions to understand why it had such a surprisingly strong pace in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Aston Martin was not -competing in Belgium a week ago, but responded in an impressive style with both cars in the top six at the Hungaroring and Racing to Fifth and Seventh. Alonso says that only the different track characteristics do not explain the difference in performance and emphasized the need for the team to gain insight into the improved competitiveness.

“It’s a surprise, it’s certainly a surprise,” said Alonso. “It’s a nice surprise. The good is that we were competitive and that we were fast. The relevant is that we don’t know why.

“In a certain sense, we need this week in the factory to analyze exactly what the differences are between Spa and Hungary, whatever the differences on the car, on the setup, on the Aero devices with which we racing. Of course the main theme for us was the front wing that was new that was new that was new.

Alonso says that his fifth place behind the two McLarens, George Russell and Charles Leclerc was the optimum result that Aston Martin could have achieved Sunday after a strong start led him to be fourth for a spell before he was easily overtaken by Lando Norris.

“I think it can’t go better than this. Of course, someone told me that the two McLarens were very close together at some point – that would be even better, but it didn’t happen! But I think we have maximized the performance of the car in qualifying and in the race.

“There was not much more to do on our side. The biggest threat was [Max] Verstappen on the two stops, but then he had some traffic and at the end we were a little more relaxed. “

Alonso’s surprise was matched by teammate Lance Stroll, who crossed Gabriel Bortoleto two seconds behind the sixth place.

“It was a great day for the team and a solid weekend from start to finish,” said Stroll. “On the way to the summer vacation with 16 points is a big increase for us. But we have a lot to learn from this weekend because we do not fully understand why we were more competitive here.

“We have to be in a place where we can place the car in that window on more tracks, because we ultimately want to be more consistent at this level of competitiveness.”