Red Bull Chief Engineer Paul Monaghan has questioned Fernando Alonso's theory that Pirelli's new Formula 1 tyres are impacting car performance. At the British Grand Prix, Pirelli introduced a new specification of tyre capable of withstanding the higher-than-expected loads cars were producing in the first-half of the season. Compounds remained the same, with the reinforced construction being tested by teams during practice ahead of June's Spanish Grand Prix. Since the new tyres were introduced, Alonso has finished seventh and ninth in Britain and Hungary, respectively, in a drop of performance from his Aston Martin team. He labelled the change a "coincidence" and believed that Red Bull was also impacted - pointing out the fact that the pace-setter did not claim pole position in Hungary - although this was only by 0.003s. But Monaghan is not so sure about Alonso's claims.
Red Bull question Alonso
"That's hard to tell because we were given the opportunity in Spain to do a back-to-back [with the new tyres] and learned a little bit of what was coming and prepared ourselves for Silverstone," Monaghan told media including RacingNews365 when presented with Alonso's suggestion. "People will remember the British Grand Prix after the Safety Car, but if you look prior to the Safety Car, Max [Verstappen] relative to Lando [Norris] put himself in a reasonable position. "It closed up and everybody rolled the dice on what tyre to put on thereafter." Instead of the tyres affecting performance, Monaghan felt the change in fortunes of Aston Martin was simply down to the development race between teams. "We can't put other people's cars back on the previous tyres, so I can't answer your question objectively, but subjectively, no one is standing still," he said. "The challenge is to try and sort your car out through this year and give yourself a better platform into next year. "Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Alpine, Alfa Romeo are all allowed to develop. "They have a little bit more wind-tunnel and CFD time than us, which is fine and nature of the beast. "It might not just be the tyres, we are looking at what other people have done."
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