Fernando Alonso told an under-the-radar tweak will provide big Aston Martin gains

Aston Martin enjoyed their best race weekend of 2025 in Hungary.

Fernando Alonso finished fifth at the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend, and teammate Lance Stroll was seventh.

It was a hugely encouraging round for Aston Martin, whose drivers qualified fifth and sixth respectively then backed it up 24 hours later in the grand prix.

Aston Martin’s result was even more impressive because, just a week earlier in Belgium, they qualified at the back of the grid then delivered two non-scores.

Alonso reflected on his personal-best result of 2025 in Hungary: “Sixteen points are very important in this part of the championship. “It’s good to go with a smile into the break.

“I am super happy and proud of the team. This was the last push into the 2025 car and it seems they delivered what we expected.

“The track was friendly to us. We take it one at a time, we executed a good weekend.

“It will be up and down for everybody. The best example is the past two races, how teams deliver and perform differently from track to track.

“We need to minimise losses.”

Under-the-radar upgrade bodes well for Aston Martin

Alonso has personally scored points in 13 of the past 14 grands prix in Hungary, a signal of his enduring longevity.

But this year has been an uphill battle for the 44-year-old, who is the oldest driver in Formula 1 today.

Aston Martin have never threatened to advance beyond the midfield.

But Bernie Collins, the Sky Sports broadcaster who was a strategist at Aston Martin, noticed how one relatively under-the-radar upgrade could provide a knock-on effect to the entire package.

She said: “It’s great to see that team do so well, they’ve had a really tough year.

“People underestimate the teams at the back of the grid. They’re not scoring points but are working as hard as the rest of the teams.

“It becomes really, really relentless to not get that performance.

“They have seemed a bit lost in where the car performance has gone.

“They brought a new front wing - that’s what we were told, one new component - and it seems to have revolutionised the car.

“It is a different circuit to Spa, for sure. It is much higher downforce.

“But we’ve been to high downforce tracks before this season and haven’t seen the performance from them.

“They’ve got to be buoyed that whatever they have changed from the specifics of that front wing has worked.

“That’s a good correlation point for their wind tunnel, their fluid dynamics at the factory, their wind tunnel, to build on for the rest of this year and next year.

“The break is important. To go into it thinking ‘the rest of our year might not be as bad as we feared in Spa’ is positive.”

Aston Martin welcomed Adrian Newey to their project this year amid huge fanfare.

The best car designer in the history of F1 is largely focused on next year and beyond.

The F1 2026 regulations are where Aston Martin are hoping to find a huge boost.

Newey, who oversaw Red Bull’s recent dominant era, could be the catalyst for Aston Martin to build a front-running car at last.