Fernando Alonso has blamed the power issues he faced in the Qatar GP on his Aston Martin AMR24 being “confused.”
Despite complaining about a lack of speed at points the Spaniard drove a strong race and took advantage of problems for others to secure seventh place.
It was the first score for the Silverstone team after a four-race drought since Alonso earned eighth in Singapore.
“We had some issues,” he said. “It’s not the first race that we are lacking top speed in the first half of the race or after the safety car.
“I think the car is confused, still thinking that we are behind the safety car. So we don’t deploy the energy properly out of the last corner when there’s a green flag.
“And that obviously is very costly if you don’t deploy the energy when you have all the cars around you. And yeah, we lost, I think, two or three places at the first restart, and that was very worrying for the final outcome of the race.
“But yeah, we compensated at the end with some safety cars and better luck. So we still investigate it. I think we know what the issue is. We just need to find the solution.”
Alonso stressed that overall it had been a positive race, despite the problems.
“A very good Sunday for us,” he noted. “A lot of points, six points for the team, P7. It is better than we anticipated. Obviously we capitalised on some of the action in front of us, some DNFs, some penalties. So we were ready there to take the opportunity and happy.
“It wasn’t expected. But yesterday, the car felt good in qualifying, it was a good surprise. And today in the race, we were relatively fast, together with Alpine and Haas.
“As I said a little bit lucky at the end, with the safety car, penalty for Norris, and DNF of Checo. You have to be there. Sometimes when we are P14, P15, even if there is something happening in front of you, you don’t take the opportunities. So we were in the right place at the right time today.”
He added: “Since Singapore, we were not scoring any points. So today we had this opportunity, and we took it. So yeah, happy for the team. Now one race left, it will be nice to finish on a positive note in Abu Dhabi.”
Alonso is skipping the post-season test as he continues to address back issues.
“It’s not secret that I’ve been struggling physically for four races,” he said. “It seems that I’m now out of the darkness.
“I feel good today. I felt good in Las Vegas that I wanted to race immediately after Vegas. But I think I need to stop, and take care of myself a little bit.”
Adam Cooper F1 