Aston Martin Q2 appearance ‘a step in the right direction’ at Hungary Grand Prix

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso has claimed getting into Q2 in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix was ‘a step in the right direction’ after a troublesome season.

Feature image credit: Pirelli

Two-time world champion Alonso managed to scrape his car into Q2 on Saturday’s qualifying session ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, pipping his closest rival, Haas’ Oliver Bearman, by a tenth to progress, marking a promising start to Aston Martin’s rejuvenated upgrades.

The Silverstone-based team brought a series of upgrades to this weekend’s race weekend around the Hungaroring; in essence, they brought a brand new car, waving goodbye to their previous version.

The team endured a painful start to the latest set of regulations, marred by power unit, performance and reliability problems, qualifying two seconds adrift of their closest rivals at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Lando Norris beats Lewis Hamilton to Hungarian Grand Prix pole

After securing his first appearance in Q2 of the season, Alonso has praised the new upgrades, describing them as ‘a step in the right direction’ and claimed it was ‘good to fight for something.’ He said:

“It has been a more competitive weekend for us and getting into Q2 is a step in the right direction.

“It was our best Qualifying of the season. It was good to fight for something and everyone in the team was focused to extract the maximum.

“We are still optimising this package and there is more potential to unlock in the car, but it was good to see it deliver what we expected.

“The car seems more consistent and predictable, so it’s a bit easier to drive. We are going to keep learning about this car [on Sunday] and we’ll see what we can do in the race.

“A big thanks to everyone in the factory, there has been months of hard work. Hopefully we keep this momentum into the next few months and we keep improving the performance.”

Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton hit with Hungary Grand Prix grid penalties

After a dismal start to the season, Aston Martin needed to turn around their woes and bring something fast before they dropped well out of reach of their closest rivals. As such, the team brought 16 upgrades to the Hungarian Grand Prix.

However, their weekend still was not optimised after Lance Stroll missed Free Practice 2 after he spun out in Free Practice 1.

Despite the promising start with these new upgrades, their Team Principal and Managing Technical Partner, Adrian Newey, confirms the team have work to do to develop their latest package to extract more out of it. He said:

“We came into this weekend with an objective to be in the fight with other cars, so securing our first Q2 position is an encouraging step in that direction.

“Fernando got everything he could out of the car [on Saturday], and Lance, despite limited running [on Friday], was also improving on his final run before a tailwind sent him into the gravel.

“We still have work to do to develop the update package, and we know there is more to come.”

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Kamron Kent

Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.

I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

Kamron Kent

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.