Alonso encouraged by Aston Martin's updates, but still wants more from Honda

Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin needs more consistency from its upgraded Honda power unit despite securing a season’s-best ninth place in Sunday's Dutch Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Honda brought a new specification of power unit to Zandvoort, one race after Aston Martin delivered its own significant chassis update in Budapest prior to the summer shutdown. Following a further evolution of those new parts that was also introduced in the Netherlands, Alonso said is pleased with the car's progress but wants more from the power unit.

“Yeah, definitely [a step forward] on the chassis,” Alonso said. “I think we brought more new parts here and in the race, the car was very easy to drive, very easy on tires. That's definitely a benefit there. So, everything that we are bringing from the chassis side is delivering performance on track.

“On the engine side, it will be more difficult as we don't have a clear comparison to the previous spec. Obviously, we are in the points, so maybe there is more power and we need to take it. But still, especially on the drivability side, we need to improve and to get a little bit of consistency that seems that we lost with this spec, too.”

Aston Martin’s previous point was scored in Monaco courtesy of post-race penalties for other drivers that promoted Alonso into 10th place. But after finishing ninth on track in Zandvoort, he said the team deserves praise for the way it managed the race.

“I'm very happy," he said. "Happy for the team, as I think they nailed all the decisions. The strategy was the right one, the starting tire was the right one. At the end (there were) a couple of Virtual Safety Cars, so we were debating if stopping or not. We decided not. So, I think all the decisions they made were the correct ones.

“Thanks to that mix, we are in the points. The car was performing well. Very low tire degradation. So, happy for the team. Hopefully, we keep this momentum into the next few races, and big congratulations to everyone.”