Fernando Alonso points to unseen Aston Martin progress after 'huge steps'

Fernando Alonso has pointed to Aston Martin's progress in its energy deployment as an unseen step forward after the Austrian GP. 

Aston Martin suffered a Did Not Finish with Lance Stroll whilst Alonso was 18th, three laps down, in the Austrian GP. 

However, despite the seemingly lack of improvement in the results, Alonso detailed exactly how qualifying had marked a breakthrough for the team, in its energy deployment and management over qualifying laps, even though it qualified on the back-row, with Alonso 0.912s slower than Cadillac's Valtteri Bottas.

The team has also been struggling with its own in-house gearbox losing gear-sync at low speeds, but two-time champion Alonso felt "huge steps" were also made in solving this issue.

"Inside the team, we faced some challenges this weekend, maybe with the altitude, a different track which is tough on energy, but since FP1, we made huge steps on the drivability of the gearbox, the downshifts, upshifts and energy consistency," Alonso told media, including RacingNews365. 

"The deployment has been a little bit inconsistent for the first part of the year, so we got to qualifying, and every lap had a different speed on the straights approaching the corner, and we put a lot of emphasis here to improve that.

"I think it was the first qualifying of the year where I had the same deployment for all three laps, and that allowed me to push the limits in the corner, because I knew the approach speed to the next corner.

"So the steps we did since FP1 to qualifying, they were very encouraging, and the team is still working as if we were fighting for points or podiums. 

"It is possible to get demotivated when you are last every weekend, but on the team, no one is giving up; they are working to improve the car every session. 

"From the driver's point of view, that gives you motivation to not give up, because the team is not giving up."