F1 veteran Fernando Alonso: What is the 3-second improvement worth?

For Fernando Alonso and his Aston Martin team, things are finally looking up. The extensive upgrade that the team brought onto the track in Budapest following their race at Silverstone secured the Spaniard his first Q2 qualification of the year. This was followed by the summer break, during which the Honda engineers worked on the engine upgrade that is being used at Zandvoort.

On the dune circuit, however, the Spaniard failed to reach the second segment in either the Sprint or Grand Prix qualifying sessions. Nevertheless, he spoke of a significant improvement and explained after the session to determine the starting grid for the twelfth Sunday race of the year: “In Budapest we made it into Q2; here we were a tenth or so short of making it through to the next stage.”

A deceptive picture

The 32-time GP winner did the maths: “The gap to Oscar Piastri’s fastest Q1 time in GP qualifying was 1.040 seconds. Not long ago, we were an average of 4.5 seconds off the leader; that means we’ve managed to improve by three seconds over the course of two races. That’s overwhelming, because everything is working as expected. But it’s a tough sport – you always have to keep improving.”

In fact, Alonso was significantly further off the pace at Spa; on the historic Belgian circuit, he was 4.137 seconds slower than Lando Norris, who had set the fastest time in Q1. But that was due not least to the length of the lap, as at Spa it is just under seven kilometres, whilst Zandvoort is only 4.259 km long.

Changes must come from Japan

The two-time champion also explained, however: “Here at the circuit, there’s not much we can do to improve the car’s handling; we have to rely on a few major changes at the factory and in the software, and that will come from Japan, so it can’t simply be implemented from one day to the next. It’s more likely to be at Monza that we’ll make the next step forward.”

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Accordingly, Alonso rates the likelihood of scoring points in the race as low: “Normally we’re a bit stronger in the race, because our chassis is very good, and when the tyres are worn, we rely more on the grip of the chassis rather than that of the tyres. So we can do a better job there. At the same time, however, it’ll be difficult to overtake on the straights, so we’re in a tricky situation there.”