Alonso hails 'good news' after Belgian GP top five

Fernando Alonso has hailed Aston Martin's top five performance at the Belgian Grand Prix as "good news" before the summer break.

The team has struggled to replicate their blistering start to the season in the last few races after Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren caught up in the development race, with Alonso not scoring a podium since second place in Canada.

Alonso was wary of whether Aston Martin could produce a good result on merit at the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps, but managed to improve on his P9 starting position to P5 on race day after spinning out of the Sprint.

"Today the car felt fast, we kept one Mercedes behind and one McLaren behind," he told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"So we were in the mix and that's good news before the summer break."

After getting a good start, Alonso navigated past the slow-moving Oscar Piastri who was nursing his car after contact with Carlos Sainz.

This caused a few cars to bunch up behind him on the run up Eau Rouge, with Alonso managing to drive past and gain a few positions.

He explained: "I was lucky at the start. Before Eau Rouge I made a few places there and I was a little bit worried we will fall back and the pace will not be good enough to keep that position."

Wet conditions a limitation

Every session during the weekend was interrupted by rain, with the race predominantly staying dry and not requiring wet tyres.

Due to the lack of practice on the slicks, teams were largely in the dark on the amount of tyre degradation that would be produced.

"We were more or less, apart of McLaren, all on the dry-ish setup," he said.

"We never did two laps with the same conditions all through the weekend, it was just getting drier and drier and eventually onto slicks.

"Today the car felt more normal.

"We had a few thoughts after Hungry and Silverstone, the team was making setup changes to the car and I think they paid off."