Aston Martin flying in spares for 'promising' upgraded car

Aston Martin is flying spare parts out to Formula 1's Hungarian Grand Prix so both drivers can have the heavily upgraded AMR26 for qualifying.

The overhauled Aston Martin showed promising pace on debut, but Lance Stroll's FP1 lasted less than 40 minutes as the left-rear suspension failed on his Aston Martin and he spun approaching the Turn 3 right-hand kink.

That prematurely ended his practice day as the car could not be repaired for FP2 due to a lack of spare parts. The team was already pushed for those given it had put everything towards debuting the new package before the summer break.

Team representative Pedro de la Rosa confirmed after FP2 that Stroll's issue had been a suspension failure, but said the team had been confident it would not happen on Fernando Alonso's car.

"That's the reason why he went out and he continued in the second session, so we were safe on that," he said.

"However, it meant that because of the lack of spares, we couldn't repair the car on time with Lance. He will be out tomorrow [Saturday], but we couldn't do it for the second session, unfortunately.

"We've lost a lot of track time with that, but also Lance has lost a lot of track time, because it's just a new feeling, a different characteristic to drive this car, so drivers also need to adapt. It's not only about adapting the set-up, but also the drivers to this car."

De la Rosa confirmed it was a "combination" of parts at the track and others being flown in from Aston Martin's Silverstone base that needed replacing on Stroll's car.

Alonso's upgrade verdict

Alonso said the upgrade "felt good" and that "in general we had what we expected in terms of numbers and correlation, which is obviously very encouraging for the future as well, for next year's car and the future upgrades into this year".

"Still a long way to go for us, obviously starting so far behind, but this is the first step hopefully of good ones coming," he said.

Alonso felt confident he should at least be racing other cars with midfield rivals, including Williams driver Alex Albon, expecting Aston Martin to be a Q2 threat.

"We need to study more the data and see a little bit of overlays, but I don't think there is any big surprises there or any big deficit on the corners now to the top of the midfield, which is obviously the first of our ambitions: to be top of the midfield," Alonso said.

"I think on the corners we are matching that kind of pace, so we just need to keep up the work.

"Obviously there are still some steps to go to the top of the chassis side and some steps to go to the engine side as well.

"This is the first of many, but I think there is a positive atmosphere in the team, knowing that we deliver what we expect."

That tallied with team principal Adrian Newey's view in-between practice sessions that the "provisional results are promising".

The only snag was the reemergence of audible vibrations aboard the Aston Martin.

"We had some vibrations on the main straight, especially in FP1," Alonso said. "I think the guys fixed it more or less for FP2, so there are no concerns for tomorrow."

There were still complaints over the team radio of the vibrations in FP2, although de la Rosa said these were "something that Honda is on top of" and that they were not of the kind the team experienced at the start of the season.

"We observed some oscillation on the engine, and we know the cause, which is different from the previous vibrations," said Honda's trackside general manager and chief engineer, Shintaro Orihara.

"We were fine-tuning the countermeasures through the sessions, and we can confirm improvements."

Regardless, things are undoubtedly looking better for Aston Martin. Alonso's fastest laptime in FP2 was deleted for a track-limits breach, but that lap would have put him 17th and ahead of cars he was more than two seconds adrift of at Spa last weekend.

Rivals put Aston Martin's corner performance as being in the thick of the midfield fight, hence the team's keenness to have two cars running the upgrade on Saturday.