For the Canadian GP earlier this month, Aston Martin debuted more aggressive sidepod bodywork and a revised floor design for its AMR23 which Alonso used to secure his sixth podium result of the season, finishing second to Max Verstappen.
But the Spaniard says Aston Martin’s push to fully understand its update risks being stymied by this weekend’s Austrian GP, which will run as the second sprint round of the season after Azerbaijan.
New for this year, the qualifying session to decide the grid for the main race takes place on Friday. Meanwhile, the sprint event now is self-contained with a qualifying shootout and race on Saturday.
This only leaves one free practice session on Friday afternoon for teams to refine their set-up and validate any car upgrades.
“I think the sprint weekend will not be ideal for us,” Alonso conceded.
“We still [need] more time maybe of free practice with our new upgraded car. We still need to understand and optimise the package a little bit.
“In Austria, obviously with the sprint, we will have only FP1 to do that.”
He added: “The circuit will be good and maybe better for the package as well… so maybe Austria we have a little bit more pace.”
Source: Autosport