Alonso 'not stressed' despite Aston Martin slump

Fernando Alonso says he is not too worried by Aston Martin's recent slump in competitiveness, adding that the team are still ahead of where they had expected to be in 2023.

The AMR23 showed well in the opening few races of the year, with Alonso taking six podium finishes in the first eight races – a far cry from 2022 when Aston Martin had finished no higher than sixth all season long.

However, in recent races, Aston Martin appear to have been overtaken by other teams, notably including McLaren, who finished a strong second and fourth in Sunday's British Grand Prix after having delivered a number of updates to the MCL60.

The Silverstone event saw Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll finish a lowly seventh and 14th, but the Spaniard declared himself unconcerned at this apparent slump, and insisted upon the importance of long-term thinking.

"I'm not too stressed about development," Alonso told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"The car is better than expected this year. We are fighting for things that we could probably never dream at the beginning of the year.

"If we can keep in the top 10 and fighting with the top guys, it's great. But I think we have to focus on the long-term picture.

"We cannot get stressed every weekend if we are seventh, or fourth, or on the podium. We need to be very pragmatic and very relaxed about our performance."

AMR23 not suited to Silverstone

Alonso added that his seventh place had exceeded the potential of his AMR23, which he said was not ideally suited to the fast sweeps of the Silverstone Circuit.

"We were not fast enough in any session this weekend, so it was no different in the race," said Alonso.

"We tried to stretch the stint on the Mediums at the beginning, then it was the Safety Car. We chose the Soft because it was a short run at the end.

"It was a good strategy and thanks to all those calls, we took seventh place, a little bit higher than the pace that we had. All in all, I think we saved a very difficult weekend."

Asked which particular areas Aston Martin were lacking in compared with their rivals, Alonso replied: "Probably a little bit of everything. A few teams brought some significant upgrades lately.

"Track specific - here was not the best layout for the package that we have.

"We also need to see the tyres – it's the first race that we have this new construction so things that maybe we need to analyse more in detail. Hopefully in Hungary we are competitive again."