Fernando Alonso has admitted Aston Martin is braced to endure some “painful” races over the coming weeks as he qualified 11th for Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Aston Martin’s regression since the mid-point last term has continued into this campaign as Alonso warned in Monaco that it was heading back towards the midfield.
Despite the side logging a welcome double points haul in Canada a fortnight ago, the Silverstone-based squad has struggled at Barcelona and both cars exited in Q2.
Alonso produced a lap time that was over two-tenths faster than team-mate Lance Stroll, but it was not enough to book his place into Q3 as he came up 0.019s short.
But the Spaniard wasn’t disappointed to not be involved in the pole position shootout on home soil, divulging that Aston Martin had expected its troubles to be worse.
“Yeah very close, we knew that it would be very tight in this type of circuit,” he conceded.
“Austria will be extreme, as if you’re running 1:04s it will be even tighter, so yeah I think I’m happy with the result, even if it is painful to say in front of the home grandstands.
“But before qualifying our predictions were a little bit more pessimistic, even with one car we opted to go with 3 sets in Q1 which is a sign that you are not very confident.
“All in all to start P10 with Checo’s [Sergio Perez] penalty is a good result and hopefully tomorrow we are just one position away from the points let’s see.”
Alpine emerged as the surprise package to usher both cars into the top 10, but Alonso has claimed he was not shocked his ex-team transpired to be so competitive.
Asked whether the Enstone-based squad, which has five points this season, outpacing Aston Martin concerned him at all, Alonso answered: “No I think we knew.
“Alpine was in front of us in Monaco, was very close in Canada, here they are just half a tenth in front so they are getting better and we are getting worse probably!”
Alonso revealed that Aston Martin has developments in the works which he hopes will prove to be a turning point that enables the team to escape its current slump.
“A combination of the two is not great, but I think as I said many times we have some things in the pipeline that should put us back in the right direction,” he added.
“It’s going to be painful here, it’s going to be painful in Austria, in Silverstone, we have to keep scoring points if it’s eighth, eighth, if it’s seventh, ninth, whatever.
“We cannot give up and stay positive in these tough times.”
Asked when the aforementioned pain would come to an end, Alonso explained how Aston Martin has now gathered a grasp on the reasons behind its sharp decline.
“Hopefully before summer break, but I think there are a lot of understanding in the team about what went right, what went wrong,” he responded.
“Not only this year, I think the second part of last year and this year. I think as all the teams we are getting more and more extreme with development.
“And the cars are more critical to drive, but now we understood a few ideas that will bring performance.
“But as I said until the next three or four races some team to go through.”
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