Fernando Alonso refutes Adrian Newey claim over significant Aston Martin issue

Fernando Alonso has disputed the suggestion it will take Aston Martin two years to fix its simulator, after Adrian Newey stated it could over the Monaco Grand Prix weekend.

Having recently joined the Silverstone squad, the legendary designer and aerodynamicist worked his first race trackside for the team in Monte Carlo.

During a media session at the principality, the Briton highlighted how "weak" some of the tools at Aston Martin's disposal are, in particular zeroing in on the simulator.

"It needs a lot of work. It's not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool, and not having that is a limitation," Newey said.

"We've got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be, but that's probably a two-year project, in truth."

However, Alonso sees the situation differently. When asked for his reaction to those remarks, he responded by outlining how different the two environments are, something that makes correlation between the two difficult.

"Well, I think all the simulators will have some kind of correlation issues to the real car," the Spanish driver told media including RacingNews365.

"And I don't think that any team has a perfect simulator that you can trust 100%, because the car on the real track and in real life is very dynamic and it keeps changing, always, corner to corner and session to session.

"There are not two laps on the weekend that are exactly the same, because of the wind, because of the temperature, because of the traffic in front - all these kinds of things.

"So when you try to replicate that on a simulator, in a consistent and perfect environment, I think it's very different."

The two-time F1 drivers' champion went on challenge the timeframe presented by Newey, expressing his opinion that it will not take as long at mooted.

Alonso also shared that he and the other drivers in the Aston Martin stable have already raised the issue within the team.

"But I think it will take less than two years to fix our simulator," the 32-time grand prix winner said.

"It's not new. Maybe it's the first time that Adrian said it in Monaco in the interview, but rest assured that [us] drivers, we [have] mentioned it a couple of times already.