REPORT: No points in Belgium

We head into the summer break with no new points added to our tally after a Belgian Grand Prix

Alex Albon had enjoyed a good start, climbing up to P8 for a time on the opening tour before being passed by Max Verstappen at the end of the opening tour.

Logan Sargeant dropped to the back of the field by the first corner and quickly set about trying to claw back some positions, passing a slow-moving Zhou Guanyu on Lap 3.

We were among the first to stop, opting to double stack our pair at the end of Lap 8 onto fresh mediums. It was two good stops from the team, which was acknowledged by Logan over the airwaves.

The FW46 piloted by Albono returned to the top 10 on Lap 15, with a fine move on Yuki Tsunoda up against the fringes of the tarmac along the Kemmel Straight.

On Lap 23, our No23 stopped for the second and final time with Logan following him one lap later. Both fitted new hard tyres to take them to the flag.

Alex set about looking to hassle his way back towards the top 10, passing Magnussen on Lap 27.

It soon became apparent that both Aston Martin cars had opted to one-stop, so the task was to reel them both in if we wanted a points finish.

With less than 10 laps to go, both Alex (P13) and Logan (P19) were catching the cars ahead, but Lance Stroll managed to keep Albono at bay to the very end.

However, Logan did manage to catch Nico Hulkenberg to return to P18 where he had started 44 laps earlier.

George Russell was disqualified post-race for being below the minimum weight, meaning we are classified in P12 and P17.

"I had a good start today but ultimately; we just didn’t have the pace," Alex shared.

"I think we executed the race as well as we could but at the end of the day, you need pace to get points and we just didn’t have it.

"It would’ve been better if we had two sets of Hard tyres for the race but unfortunately, we didn’t, so I’m not sure if that would’ve changed things.

"We haven’t had any upgrades all year, so I think we’re just falling behind the pack too much, which makes things difficult.

"We’ve got some coming after the summer break, so hopefully, we can return more competitive."

"It wasn’t great today," Logan commented. "I feel like the Hard tyres were solid and I was happy with the pace, but the first two Medium stints were pretty tricky and it wasn’t easy to drive.

"In my second Medium stint, I was trying to hold people up behind, which was ultimately helping Alex ahead, so I was trying to do my best in that sense.

"I think things could have looked a little different if we had a dry Qualifying, but now we will use the summer to reset."

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, concluded by saying: "It was a difficult and disappointing afternoon.

"We started the race well with Alex gaining two places in the start and a good first stint on the Medium following Fernando.

"We decided to cover off some of the early stoppers and fitted the Medium again.

"Unfortunately, we struggled a bit in that second stint, and it became clear that some of our competitors had more pace than us.

"P13 was all that was in it today, however with the disqualification of George, this moves Alex to P12 and Logan to P17.

"We’ll use the summer shutdown to charge the batteries and come back stronger for Holland with some upgrades planned for the coming races following the break."