Alonso bemoans ‘not good enough’ Aston Martin performance in ‘very long’ Austrian GP

Fernando Alonso acknowledged that Aston Martin’s performance in the Austrian Grand Prix was “definitely not good enough” after a challenging race for the Spaniard, who finished down in 18th place as the team’s struggles for pace continued.

Having only just made it through to Q2 of Saturday’s qualifying, Alonso started from 15th on the grid and from there endured a long afternoon at the Red Bull Ring.

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The two-time world champion got his elbows out during a battle with Zhou Guanyu but was deemed to have forced the Kick Sauber off track, resulting in a 10-second time penalty.

Things did not improve throughout the remainder of the race, and Alonso could only watch the likes of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon battle it out ahead of him.

“A difficult race,” the 42-year-old commented. “When you don’t have the pace, you have to try different and alternative strategies.

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“We tried the three stops, then I locked up and I touched [Zhou] Guanyu in Turn 3, I had the penalty, so all in all it didn’t change probably the result because we were out of the points. A very long race [at] 71 laps when you are not fast enough.”

With the British Grand Prix just days away – in the final stop on a triple-header of races – Alonso is at least hopeful that the team can have a stronger outing there.

“We need to understand, we need to get together before Silverstone and try to have a better weekend I think,” he added. “This was definitely not good enough, not competitive, so I’m reasonably optimistic that Silverstone has to be better than this.”

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Team mate Lance Stroll echoed Alonso’s sentiments, labelling the visit to the Red Bull Ring as a “long weekend” after ending the race in P13 before conceding that Aston Martin have “a lot of work to do”.