Hope in Aston Martin has been pinned for weeks on the major upgrade the team is preparing for the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend. A set of updates that they hadn’t even dared to believe would be available to both drivers, but whose improvement they have pegged at a clear figure: two seconds. It might end up being for nothing.
Aston Martin has hit rock bottom at Spa-Francorchamps. They finished last, as expected, but what’s worrying is the time gap. Fernando Alonso, the best-placed Aston Martin, was two seconds behind the next, Sergio Pérez’s Cadillac. Aston Martin’s upgrades could prove useless.
Aston Martin is now more than two seconds behind the Cadillacs
There was no surprise in Spa. Nor did anyone expect one. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were the two slowest drivers in qualifying. Moreover, both carry a huge grid penalty for changing engine components, so they will start from the two last positions in the Belgian race.
The worrying part isn’t the positions, but the times. Fernando Alonso, who beat Stroll by a little more than a tenth, was 2.1 seconds off the next, the Cadillac of Mexican Sergio Pérez. Specifically, Alonso clocked a 1:50.002, while Pérez stopped the clock at 1:47.971. A gulf of a distance.
A difference that worries for one main reason: Aston Martin has spoken with great optimism about the improvements they will bring for the next race, Hungary. They forecast that the new AMR26B designed by Adrian Newey will be two seconds faster than the current one. An improvement that sounds huge, but given what has been seen, it wouldn’t be enough to stop them from finishing last.
And yet Aston Martin in Spa were faster than many predicted. In fact, there was some fear that Alonso might not break the 107% barrier and would not be able to race. However, the best Aston Martin was only at 103.9% of the fastest, Lando Norris. At Silverstone it had been 105.4% and in Austria 105.8%.
Of course, the Hungary package is only the first phase of the upgrades Aston Martin is preparing. In fact, after the summer, at Zandvoort, Honda will bring its new engine, whose improvement they have not yet quantified in time. But the conclusion from Spa’s classification seems quite clear.
The aerodynamic updates for Hungary, even if they work perfectly, will hardly lift Aston Martin out of the back of Formula 1.
Images | Aston Martin
