“I lost two places”: Fernando Alonso on rain playing a part in the British F1 Grand Prix

Fernando Alonso admits losing two places during the race as rain played its part in the 2024 British GP. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda after the race, the Aston Martin driver reckons the feeling with the car has improved given their points finish in the race.

Starting tenth on the grid, Fernando Alonso finished eighth in the race. With rain mixing up the order, he dropped two places in the mixed conditions but was able to recover as the track dried up and the slick tires were on. The 42-year-old reckons that the car felt much better in Silverstone and they were able to get both cars into the points.

Aston Martin brought an upgrade to Imola which did not work and convert to the performance they expected. As a result of this, they were fighting in the midfield outside the top 10. However, they did make significant progress in Austria and were able to understand their package better in Silverstone and make more progress. Fernando Alonso reckons that changing late to the intermediates made him lose time but his performance could have been better if it weren’t for the mixed conditions.

Asked by Sportskeeda if the rain helped during the race, Fernando Alonso replied:

“No. I lost two places."

Asked if the feeling in the car was better than it was in the previous races, the Spanish driver replied:

“Yeah, it was very good. I mean, the feeling was back to normality. We were fifth, sixth fastest team, Nico I think was very the whole weekend but yeah, we could fight for seventh and eight. I think it's more or less the positions we were before pre-Imola in a way. So yeah, we came back to our more natural position, so happy for that.”

Explaining the improvements in the car and his race, Fernando Alonso said:

“Yeah, yeah, it has been better, you know, since, I mean, after Austria we regroup a little bit, we understood a couple of directions that maybe were not right. As I said happy to be back on the points as it felt more competitive. Tricky race to understand and a gamble in some of the tire change. I waited too long to put the inters, but yeah the track was too dry probably. So you damaged a lot the inters on that first couple of laps. So I didn't want to do that in case of heavy rain to have a better inter tire. It didn't rain. So yeah, my bet in a way was not working but yeah, you need a little bit of luck on those.”

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Fernando Alonso is optimistic about the upgrades Aston Martin is bringing to Hungary

Fernando Alonso believes McLaren and Mercedes are examples of how the right upgrades can turn around the performance in a short period. While he is cautiously optimistic due to the upgrades in the past not working, he believes there could be positives to look forward to in Hungary. One of the changes Aston Martin is speculated to make to their car is a front wing similar to Mercedes. In the pursuit of turning around their performance slump, the Silver Arrows were experimenting with their floor to find gains in performance but realized that a modified front wing was the key to making progress.

Asked how optimistic he was about the upgrades that will be brought to Hungary, Fernando Alonso said:

“Yeah I mean, we need to prove it, we need to not talk and deliver the results, you know. We've been bringing a lot of new parts to the car and some of them they worked, some of them they didn’t. So hopefully in Hungary we have a positive surprise. We saw last year McLaren, you know, showing us how much it can change in a season, the car performance and this year we have Mercedes, So there are two examples that it is possible, so it's up to us.”

Aston Martin struggled in 2024 and is far from the multiple podiums they began the 2023 season with. Fernando Alonso had clinched six podiums and started the 2023 season third in the driver's standings and finished in fourth place in the standings. However, this year he has managed to score only 45 points and is running ninth in the drivers standings while the Silverstone-based team is placed fifth in the standing, but with a significantly lower points score than mid-season in 2023.