Franco Colapinto believes that Aston Martin made a significant performance leap at the Hungarian Grand Prix in Formula 1 and stated that the British team has become much faster in the corners than Alpine. The Argentine hopes that the update planned for Zandvoort will allow the French team to respond in the second half of the season.
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Aston Martin faced difficulties at the start of the new era of the category, marked by changes in the power unit regulations, with greater participation of electric energy. Besides the performance and reliability problems of the new Honda engine, the team also struggled with the behavior of the AMR26, which had a start to the season below expectations.
After postponing the introduction of updates for much of the championship, the team brought a large package of novelties to the Hungarian GP. The result was a noticeable advance: Fernando Alonso reached Q2 for the first time in a conventional qualifying this season, while Alonso and Lance Stroll finished the race in 14th and 13th, respectively, just over ten seconds behind Pierre Gasly and ahead of Colapinto.
After spending much of the race chasing the green cars, Colapinto praised the rival’s evolution. “They are very strong in the corners. On the straights they are really slow and lose a lot of lap time, but in the corners they are definitely much faster than us,” he said.
The Alpine driver believes this progress shows that his team can also make a performance leap. “This shows that we can evolve a lot and I hope our updates in Zandvoort represent a big step,” he added.
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According to the publication, Aston Martin is also expected to receive an important update to the Honda power unit in Zandvoort, which could significantly improve straight-line performance.
Regarding his own race at the Hungaroring, Colapinto showed frustration. The Argentine started 13th but finished only in 15th place. “Of course, I am not happy at all. It was a very difficult afternoon. Overall, we lacked a lot of pace,” he said.
He explained that the problems started right after the first laps. “After the first laps I started having a lot of difficulty with the car and it never recovered. Even with new tires we were still very far from the pace and very slow.”
Colapinto believes something unusual may have happened during the race. “We need to understand the reason. Maybe there was some damage or something else, because the car’s behavior was very strange. The balance and grip were very bad. We need to analyze everything to understand exactly what happened,” he concluded.
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