Even Budapest upgrade may not end Aston Martin slump

A return to form could be a long way off for the struggling Aston Martin team, lead driver Fernando Alonso has admitted.

Last year, the rapidly developing and investing team stunned with Alonso’s early sequence of podiums - but around P15 has been the Spaniard’s level this weekend in Austria.

"It’s going to be the same at Silverstone," he said at the Red Bull Ring.

"I know I’m being a bit repetitive, because we’ve been saying it for several races now, but F1 is like that. You have to talk to the media on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and it becomes a mess, because you always repeat the same thing."

The 42-year-old says his engineers have been working hard to find more pace and better handling via setup.

"We made some changes but we see that it doesn’t change. It’s not a setup problem, it’s a car problem," said Alonso.

"As I said in Spain, we have understood the direction a little, but we have to face this triple (header) of races so there has been no time to do anything. We have to suffer."

Alonso even suggested Aston Martin’s current slump could last until after the summer break.

"We’re going to bring something to Budapest, but I don’t think we’re focusing on Budapest, we’re focusing on the whole year," he said. "We don’t know if it’s going to be the definitive solution.

"We’re working hard, since the sprint race finished we changed the car from top to bottom - the mechanics didn’t even have time to eat."

Alonso says his own situation has been made even worse in Austria because the engine in the rear of his green car is on its last legs.

"We have to do one more race with this engine, others the numbers won’t add up for 24 races," he said. "We can change it here and be P14 instead of P15, but it’s one of the worst races so we’re trying to use the worst engine."