Aston Martin's fresh upgrade key to unlocking Alonso's concern

Aston Martin expect a fresh raft of F1 upgrades to be able to steer the team back in the right direction, and help soothe Fernando Alonso's concerns. 

Alonso has been vocal in recent weeks, growing frustrated at a lack of performance from the AMR24, telling the team after the Spanish GP that it had to "talk less."

The two-time world champion has also replied to questions around the performance with variants of 'that is a question for Mike and Tom', referring to team principal Mike Krack and engineering chief Tom McCullough. 

The Silverstone-based team is yet to bring a sizeable upgrade during the season, as McCullough promised an upgrade was in the pipeline for the Hungary-Belgium double-header before the summer break. 

Addressing the new parts, McCullough described how the small package would pinpoint the right direction for the team.  

"The proof of the pudding is always in the eating, we've found that with these regulations over the last few years," McCullough told media including RacingNews365. 

"It is a reasonable change in the philosophies of the car, but with all these things, it is relative, it is relatively small. 

"The car is not going to go from where we are now to the front of the grid, it is going to be a matter of: 'is it going in the right direction to address the issues we have' and by how much, we will see.

"It will be a bigger step next weekend, and we will see. 

"The main parts are very tight on production, so we're targeting them for Hungary, but there will also be some circuit-specific parts such as the low-drag rear-wing for Spa."

Bringing upgrades

Compared to this time last season when the team had 196 points and was third in the Constructors' with six podiums, Aston is podium-less and sits fifth on 68 points after the British GP, as McCullough hinted at an understanding of where the car performs best.

"We've got some balance characteristics that have made the car a little bit harder to set-up and drive, but most people are battling those," McCullough added.

"Nobody stands still so nobody is going to do nothing to their car, we haven't brought big changes to the car over the last few races, and changes [for Silverstone] were part of the usual development process.

"There is always a compromise, that said, we need to just add base performance to be competitive, we had the same spec car in Canada [as at Silverstone], and had a much more competitive weekend [in Montreal], and we sort of understand the reasons for that."