Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll made telling gesture to Honda president on Belgian GP grid

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Aston Martin’s Belgian Grand Prix weekend was predictably grim as they wait for the upgrades that are supposed to save their season.

In qualifying, both Aston Martin cars were over four seconds off the pace – one of the poorest performances by a team in F1’s recent history.

While Lance Stroll retired midway through the race, Fernando Alonso raced on and was lapped twice. Worst of all, he finished over a minute behind Cadillac driver Valtteri Bottas.

How much will Aston Martin’s highly-anticipated upgrades in Hungary reduce their deficit to the top?

Fernando Alonso still expects it to be "difficult" to reach Q2 in Budapest

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Lawrence Stroll points forward on Spa grid as pressure on Honda grows

The prospect of a transformative upgrade at the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend, heralded as a B-spec car by designer Adrian Newey, kept Aston Martin going.

The overhauled chassis will be followed, just after the summer break, by a new Honda engine. When the two are combined, Newey hopes to be challenging for Q2.

Autosport Web spotted team owner Lawrence Stroll in conversation with Honda Racing president Koji Watanabe before the race at Spa. They photographed him pointing further up the grid, as if he was saying: ‘Next time, I’ll start from a higher position.’

Stroll is putting pressure on Honda to deliver, in tandem with his own star-studded group of engineers.

“We checked the status of the updates, including the chassis,” Watanabe said of the conversation. “We also had various discussions regarding 2027.

• READ MORE: Guenther Steiner fears Lawrence Stroll could sack Adrian Newey if Aston Martin upgrade fails

“In order to overcome this situation, we need to improve the whole system, not just the power unit, but the chassis as well. However, everyone understands that closing the gap with the top teams will not happen overnight.

“So, we shared how much progress we have made with this update and what we aim to achieve with the next update.”

Stroll has been one of the biggest-spending owners in F1 in recent years, if not the biggest, but his team are second from bottom in the standings with one point from 10 races. Having elected not to upgrade the car incrementally, they have locked out the back row at four consecutive Grands Prix.

They have had more than twice as many DNFs (11) as top-20 starts (five).