Alonso: It has been tricky up and downs for everybody

Understandable that the 42-year-old Formula 1 driver, set for his 391st Grand Prix start when he lines up on the grid in Hungary on Sunday, has found little inspiration of late as the Aston Martin AMR24 is a dog of a car and upgrades have bombed repeatedly.

Hence McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are well out of range and between them and the rest, the Green cars can be anywhere out of the top ten. So what's the problem with the Aston Martin AMR24?

Asked the question during the FIA-hosted press conference at Hunagoring today, double F1 World Champion, Alonso explained: "It's quite difficult to have the car in the right window at the moment for us. We're struggling to maximise the potential of the car.

"I think in Barcelona, we started the weekend on the wrong foot, and we could not recover from that bad FP1, let's say. In Austria, with the Sprint weekend, you only have one free practice. And yeah, again, we didn't optimise the package.

"And in Silverstone, yeah, we had a little bit more normal weekend. It was a little bit cooler as well, which probably did help our performance. And yeah, let's see here. It's another hot track, maybe similar to Barcelona in terms of corner speeds and things. So it's a challenge for us,' admitted Alonso.

With the 2025 car, an inspired Alonso scored seven podiums with the car and was P3 in the 2023 F1 Championship standings after 13 Rounds with 168 points.

He heads to Round 13 of the F1 world championship in Budapest this weekend, lying P9 in the Drivers' standings on 45 points.

While Alonso has not stooped to "Formula 2 engine" style insults, he has told Aston Martin to talk less and do more. The Spaniard admitted that there have been challenges this season.

Alonso added: "It has been tricky. Yeah, I mean, up and downs for everybody, probably. But we started quite strong, I would say. The first four or five races, we were quite competitive, especially in qualifying, close to Mercedes and even to McLaren sometimes. And then in the race, we were going down.

"But, yeah, the last four or five weekends have been even more difficult than that. So, yeah, we need to improve our performance, we need to raise the level and get back to a more comfortable position.

"The car is not easy to drive and it's a little bit unpredictable at times. So this obviously removes confidence to the driver, when you are not able to push and to trust the car that will do the same in every corner, in every lap. So this, let's say, inconsistency is something that is not great when you are behind the wheel, and I'm struggling more this year than previously," admitted the Spanish veteran.

Alonso continued: "Yeah, and then obviously when margins are so tight and you are in a close battle for one or two points, sometimes you take more risky decisions. Sometimes you gamble on a strategy. Sometimes you risk more than what you should in the start or on a set-up choice that we went for.

"Instead of changing something minimal before qualifying, we change the whole car before qualifying because we know that with a current car in FP3, we will not be able to score more than one or two points, so you risk it more.

"So there are always consequences with things that you do when you are used to fight for higher positions and you find yourself just aiming for one or two points, sometimes you risk it all to have a top five or being out of the points is not a big loss.

"This kind of thing we learn a lot during this season and probably has been our, or my, personal biggest difficulty," revealed Alonso.

Ad for the next half of the season, Alonso said: "I think our aim, and my personal wish, is to find the direction and to find a comfortable path into the development that we can go into winter period with some more trust of what we do and then having a more normal 2025 campaign.

"So 2024, as I said, the top four teams are a little bit out of reach, so we just need to concentrate on our own development, our own trust in the car, and get better for next year," reckoned Alonso, who won the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix as a Renault driver. It was also his first of 32 GP wins on his CV.