Aston Martin have “more time to find” after successful upgrade – Alonso

Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin have “more time to find” in their set up after finishing Friday closest to Max Verstappen.

Alonso was just under two tenths of a second slower than Verstappen’s best time of the day in the second practice session at Circuit de Catalunya and almost a full second quicker than team mate Lance Stroll.

With half a second covering the top eight drivers, Alonso says he expects a competitive weekend at the front of the field.

“It’s so tight that I think one or two tenths will put you in a completely different spot in the classification,” he said. “So don’t pay too much attention to the times.”

Friday was the field’s first opportunity to get familiarised with the revised layout of the Barcelona circuit with the return of the original final corners. Alonso says his team achieved everything they had set out to do during the first day of practice.

“We went through all the programmes that we had before the free practice, which is the good thing. Learning about the tyres. The track is a little slower maybe than what we predicted, so there’s still more time to find more tweaks on the set-up, but it was a productive Friday.”

Aston Martin have brought upgrades to their front and rear wings for this weekend’s grand prix. Asked if he felt his new parts are helping his performance this weekend, Alonso replied “they do, they do, absolutely.

“There is not a new part that we put in the car that is not helping the performance,” he continued. “That’s something that has been always the case with the team from Bahrain. So I’m happy with the upgrades and let’s see tomorrow, when everyone goes to full power, where we are.

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