Jul.26 (GMM) Carlos Sainz says Williams must now prove it can emulate Aston Martin’s dramatic Hungary transformation after Fernando Alonso suddenly escaped the back of the grid with the team’s heavily revised ‘B’ car.
Aston arrived at the Hungaroring with a radically revised chassis after spending the entire season near the rear, and Alonso broke into Q2 as the package immediately delivered a major increase in downforce.
“I think that as a team, instead of looking at Aston Martin’s situation with concern, we should look at it with motivation and enthusiasm,” Sainz told Spanish reporters.
“They’ve just shown us that a team that had one of the worst downforce setups on the entire grid now seems to have, from one race to the next, the best downforce in the midfield.”
“And the fact that a midfield team with the same resources as us and, in theory, the same capabilities as us has achieved this should motivate us to see that if we’re as good as they are, we should be able to do it too.”
Williams’ own lighter ‘B’ specification will not arrive until Baku, but Sainz has already doubted it will be sufficient.
“Because of capacity, we have to do it on the car next year since the Baku upgrade was designed four or five months ago,” he said.
“So, when you get to the Baku upgrade, anything you’re thinking of adding to the car is already out of reach. You have to put it on next year’s car.”
“After Baku there won’t be anything, and I think the team should focus on next year’s car.”
As for Alonso, he says Aston’s breakthrough is more significant than merely reaching Q2 because it suggests the Adrian Newey-led team has finally solved its long-running correlation problems.
“More than Q2, it’s having taken a completely new car to a race and seeing that it works,” he said.
“We didn’t always have that, nor did we always see those guarantees due to correlation issues. I think the best news is that it seems the problems have been understood, and now you just need time to put everything in place.”
The Spaniard said the new car has also clarified where Aston Martin still needs to improve. “We already know exactly what to do,” said the almost-45-year-old.
“This improvement allows us to calculate what we need in terms of chassis and engine. Until now, we were lacking unlimited tenths of a second in both, creating a somewhat dramatic situation.”
However, Alonso confirmed the Honda power unit remains a weakness.
“We need a bit more engine power,” he said, with Honda set to run its revised power unit during a filming day at the Hungaroring next week, ahead of its Zandvoort race debut.
