Fernando Alonso has criticized F1 and Pirelli's decision to change the construction of the latter's tyres, suggesting the mid-season change may have had a bearing on the performance of Aston Martin's car.
At Silverstone last time out, Pirelli rolled out a new slick tyre across all its compounds. The product was developed by F1's exclusive tyre supplier in response to the increased load levels of this year's ground-effect cars.
While there were no specific complaints voiced by the teams at Silverstone, Alonso pronounced himself against the in-season tweak which he equated to a rule change.
The F1 veteran – who finished only eight in the British Grand Prix – also questioned whether the new-spec tyre had perhaps impacted Aston's performance.
"We don’t know. Obviously it is still one factor that we still need to analyse a little bit more in detail in the next few races," he said ahead of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.
"I’m not a fan of changing the rules in the middle of a championship.
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"In sport, you know, you change the balls in the middle of the tennis tournament or something like that, and it’s what happens when we change tyres here, we change the rules in the middle of a Formula One World Championship.
"But you know, at the end of the day, is the same for everybody again, so we just need to understand the tyre the best we can, and hopefully extract the maximum.
"If there is any change? As I said, we’re still not 100 per cent sure. We need [a] couple of races to confirm anything. So far, they look very similar but we need to wait and see."
Aston and Alonso's remarkable run of form in the first half of the season has faded in the past two races. But the 41-year-old is confident that the Hungaroring's tight and twisty layout will revive the relative pace of Aston's AMR23.
"I think because the layout of the track and the characteristics are a little bit more similar to the circuits that we did perform well at so far this year, and I think high-speed corners, long straights are not maybe the strength of our package," he explained.
"And I think Austria and Silverstone were a clear example of those.
"So yeah, hopefully here, we can come back to a stronger performance, even though our main competitors, they improved their packages, and they will be very strong as well here.
"So it’s going to be difficult, but hopefully good fun."
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