Alonso on understanding the penalty chaos in Austria: 'Everyone noticed it'

It was only after the Austrian Grand Prix that Aston Martin knew the spotlight was emphatically on them. Fernando Alonso's team was the first cause that eventually fairly rocked the results. The big winner? Aston Martin, which saw both drivers move up a place.

Aston Martin seemed to be the only team in Austria paying attention. It was Andy Stevenson of the English team who, on the one hand, saw many drivers go outside the white lines, but also noted that relatively few penalties were handed out. Aston Martin's sporting director seemed to be the only one to see it, although Alonso disputes the latter.

'Everyone saw it'

"Well I think everyone noticed it because I re-watched the race on TV at least on the Spanish channel and they were commenting that you know every one or two laps there were two or three drivers who deleted laps so more than 100 delete laps. So if you did delete laps because the system triggered that you were off track it's just a very simple thing to apply the penalties. So it was not anything against a driver or a team or whatever, it was just, if race direction and FIA delete so many laps where this came from, and that was quite simple," Alonso told Sky Sports.

Due to a penalty, Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz dropped behind Fernando Alonso. Charles Leclerc, Sainz's teammate, even grabbed a podium spot. In doing so, the Monegasque thus trumped Alonso, who has been an almost regular guest on the podium this season. Perhaps Austria was the first sign that Ferrari has surpassed Aston Martin.

"Let's see," Alonso said about it. "I think it's going to be an interesting race off track as well from circuit to circuit maybe the strengths can change a little bit. Ferrari was a little bit faster in Austria. McLaren was faster in Austria but here in Silverstone we try to get back that competitiveness."