The change of opinion
During the first Free Practice session of the last Hungarian Grand Prix there was no shortage of a sarcastic radio team of Fernando Alonso on the updates brought by Aston Martin. The Spaniard had in fact responded with a “Good luck” when asked by his race engineer for an opinion on the new package. However, as the weekend went on, the double world champion’s opinion changed, and confirmation came from #14 also on the eve of the Belgian Grand Prix: “I think that We are quite satisfied with how the new package worked in Hungary – he admitted to the media – is doing what was reported in the wind tunnel and we had a very good correlation, which was very important after some updates that made us go a bit more up and down. I think the team is quite happy with Budapest, without forgetting that this is just the first step and that we are still far from where we want to be. Now that It seems we have found the right path and that we see on the track what we see in the wind tunnel, and maybe it’s easier to add downforce without the fear of not seeing it on the track. After the Budapest update we are a little more relaxed about future news or what will come. Maybe now the team has a better understanding of where to put the performance without or with the safety of adding lap time. It will make the car quicker. I think this was a key upgrade for us and it worked as expected. It definitely gave us more confidence.”
Trust for Spa
Positive opinion on the functioning of the updates that push Alonso to believe in good results at Spa: “I see no reason why we shouldn’t get good results. – he has declared – I think Budapest was, at least according to our expectations, a bit more difficult. We changed the car so much that we came here with a bit more testing to do after all the learnings in Hungary. So I think FP1 and FP2 will be more about testing the new package and seeing where we are. We have a lot of testing ideas to optimise the package, but also the weather is not the best for tomorrow, so maybe we don’t have that opportunity. For us it would be gold if it was dry, because I think we could optimise the car a bit, and then we have to get the points. Both cars in the points and in Q3. It’s a clear target“.
The objectives after the restart
General progress that gives the Asturian confidence not only for the last race before the summer break, but also for all the others remaining on the calendar: “The motivation is only to hope for a good second part of the year, which means having a consistent car in Q3 and in the top ten – he added – Unfortunately we had a bit of ups and downs: in Barcelona we were not the fifth fastest team, and in Austria we did badly too. We were the seventh or eighth team, and I don’t want to see that again. I want to be in the upper part of the midfield, just behind the top four teams and then slowly maybe close the gap to the top four teams. We need to find the path for next year too. This second part of the year will be important to keep the momentum for 2025.”
The FIA’s apologies
In conclusion, Alonso returned to what happened in Q3 in qualifying, with the red flag for Tsunoda’s accident which had prompted some FIA delegates to send the Aston Martin drivers mistakenly in a closed park (moreover not the real one, but the fictitious one used for the filming of the F1 movie), reopened immediately afterwards to allow the conclusion of the qualification. In this case, however, it was Alonso who paid the price: “I spoke to FIA President Ben Sulayem. As I said after qualifying, I have never seen in any category sending two cars into parc fermé two and a half minutes before the end of Q3 and then reopening it, going back to the garage and things like that. I know it was a mistake. They’ve apologized to me hundreds of times. Already when I was in the parc fermé they told me ‘go back to the car and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’. So it wasn’t done on purpose or something like that.”
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