Fernando Alonso furious with ‘unwritten rule’ race stewards ignored during the Hungarian GP

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Aston Martin have had a very up-and-down 2024 Formula 1 season thus far and find themselves once again stuck in no man’s land in the Constructors’ Championship.

Mike Krack’s team have more than double the number of points of nearest rivals RB but would need to more than triple their own tally to catch Mercedes.

Unless they suddenly build a rocket ship or one of the five teams below them in the standings makes huge progress forward, they can probably already predict their finishing position in the standings for this season.

However, after a difficult period during the first half of the campaign, Aston Martin appear to have turned a corner.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll both finished in the points at Silverstone for the first time since the Australian Grand Prix.

They’ll both start on the fourth row of the grid at the Hungarian Grand Prix after reaching Q3 although they benefitted from Sergio Perez and George Russell’s early exit from qualifying.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a completely straightforward final session for Alonso and speaking after the session via F1TV, he had one complaint about the race director’s decision-making.

He feels that the red flag shown after Yuki Tsunoda’s huge shunt on the outside of turn five was flown at the wrong time.

Tsunoda went wide coming out of the long right-hand corner, hit a verge of the edge of the track and went flying into the barriers, causing plenty of damage to his RB as a result.

It not only impeded his flying lap but his team’s preparations for the rest of the session.

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Fernando Alonso furious with Yuki Tsunoda’s red flag decision

Talking about how qualifying ended, Alonso said: “It’s surprising to me because when there’s an accident at Turn 8, they usually wait until the cars have finished their laps. That’s an unwritten rule, at least.

“I had improved by one and a half tenths by the last corner when the red flag came out.

“When we drove into the pits, Lance [Stroll] and I were put under parc ferme.

“But when we got out of the car, we were told that Q3 would be restarted.

“We got back in the car, buckled up again, but because I had no tyres left, I didn’t go out again.”

“In the end, it didn’t make any difference. But that [red flag] and the parc ferme and then reopening, that doesn’t normally happen.”

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Aston Martin F1 Team from team principal to lineage

Fernando Alonso relieved despite Q3 frustrations at the Hungarian Grand Prix

It’s not too long ago that Aston Martin were struggling to get either car into the final session of qualifying.

In Austria, Stroll failed to progress through Q1 while Alonso was never in contention to reach the top-ten shootout despite scraping through the first session at the Red Bull Ring.

Aston Martin’s upgrade package simply hasn’t worked as expected in the previous few races.

The pressure on technical director Dan Fallows has increased at Aston Martin as a result and he’ll be relieved to see both cars in contention to score points on Sunday at the Hungaroring.

Alonso himself admitted he was relieved that both cars were in the top ten during qualifying after the session.

However, that hasn’t stopped Alonso from making a ‘sarky’ comment about Stroll on the team radio during the race weekend.

He’ll be hoping the Canadian acts as his rear gunner during the race to help him put pressure on the top six cars.