Alonso concedes to 'painful' Aston Martin period

Fernando Alonso has detailed he is expecting to endure a “painful” run of races as Aston Martin wait to introduce upgrades to fix its current struggles.

After a difficult day of practice on Friday, Alonso and team-mate Lance Stroll failed to advance into the final stage of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Silverstone-based squad has been unable to repeat the lightning start that it produced last year, scoring 117 fewer points compared to the same point in the season.

Alonso ended Saturday's qualifying event at his home round in 11th place and behind the two Alpine cars - a team that has made notable improvements at recent rounds following a lacklustre start to the campaign.

“Alpine was in front of us in Monaco, it was very close in Canada,” Alonso told media including RacingNews365. 

“And here, they are just half a tenth in front. They’re getting better and we are getting worse, probably. The combination of the two is not great. 

“We have some things in the pipeline that should put us back in the right direction. 

“It’s going to be painful here [in Spain], it's going to be painful in Austria and in Silverstone. 

“We have to keep scoring points - if it’s eighth, seventh, ninth, whatever, we can't give up and [we need to] stay positive in these tough times.”

Alonso provides timeline for improvements

Alonso will move up to 10th place for the start of the race due to Sergio Perez's three-place grid penalty, with team-mate Stroll set to line up in 14th.

When asked when he expects Aston Martin's pain to end and results to improve, Alonso replied: “Hopefully before the summer break.

“But I think there are a lot of understandings in the team about what went right, what went wrong, not only this year, I think [also] the second part of last year.

“As all the teams, we are getting more and more extreme with the development. The cars are more critical to drive.

“Now we understood a few ideas that will bring performance [but] the next three or four races, some pain to go through.”