'180 turnaround' boosts Alonso’s spirits after 'maximising' Hungary

21:10, 05 Aug

Updated: 21:11, 05 Aug

byKada Sarkozi

Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin completed quite a turnaround at the Hungarian GP. Where is Belgium, both green cars were towards the end of the field, both the Spaniard and Lance Stroll scored points at the Hungaroring.

Alonso crossed the finish line in fifth place, after he was around a tenth away on Saturday to qualifying in pole position. All of that happened after on Friday, he missed FP1 with a back injury.

Together with that, Lance Stroll finished in seventh place, as the team scored 16 points and is up to sixth place in the constructors' standings.

"I think it can't go any better than this. Someone told me that the two McLarens were very close to each other at one point. That would be even better, but it didn't happen," the two-time world champion smiled, as a potential incident could have meant him finishing on the podium.

Talking to GPblog among others he added: "Apart from that, I think we maximised the performance of the car yesterday in qualifying and today in the race. Not much more to do on our side."

"The biggest threat was Verstappen on the two stops but then he had some traffic and at the end we were able to be more relaxed."

He continued: "It's a nice surprise. The good thing is that we were competitive and we were fast. The concerning thing is that we don't know why," the Spaniard laughed.

"We need this week at the factory to analyse exactly what are the differences between Spa and Hungary, what are the differences on the car as well, on the setup, on the aero devices that we were racing with. The main theme for us was the front wing that was new this weekend. If that front wind gives us that much of performance, that's very good news, but I think that has to be understood at the moment."

Alonso driving the Aston Martin at the Hungarian GP

Alonso sees '180 turn'

"I would not lie, I was concerned for the second part of the year," the Spaniard explained.

Alonso therefore sees this result change the mood of the entire team entering the summer break.

"We were a little bit down in terms of motivation, everyone in the team, and these seven days, I think it changes [it] 180 degrees. I think we are looking forward now to the 10 remaining races, but at the same time there is some work to do in terms of understanding why we were competitive."