Despite finishing the race with zero points, Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell felt positive about the team’s progress after upgrades were brought to the car.

Following a poor start to the season, Aston made changes to their AMR25 as the European season kicked off and a pick up in pace was noted.

Aston Martin hopeful despite missing out in Imola

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Fernando Alonso’s P5 and Lance Stroll’s P8 in quali already suggested the pace of the car had improved but a mix of poor strategy calls and poor timing when it came to safety cars meant Aston ultimately left Italy empty-handed.

It had Alonso lamenting over the radio that he was the “unluckiest driver in the ****ing world“.

The double World Champion later told the media: “I think in 100 scenarios of the race, 99 were okay for us to score strong points for the team today. One was not, and it did happen.

“Let’s hope for other races that maybe we don’t deserve the points and we do score because of luck.”

Despite not scoring a point, Cowell, who took over as team principal ahead of this season, felt there were positives to be looked back on.

“The thing we were struggling with last year was that we were creating updates that might be good at a high-speed circuit, but worse at a low speed,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com.

“What we’ve done is bring an update that is good at low, medium and high speed. And so that’s a positive step forward. Exactly how much quicker is it? I’m not going to declare, I’ll tell you in Abu Dhabi.

“This is an exceptionally bumpy track, so a lot of ride input. So the ride characteristics that you set up compared with the previous circuits is different. So [the next race in] Monaco is unique in its own special way and then we go to Barcelona.

“But then in Barcelona, there’s FIA front wing flexibility changes. So we just keep pushing forward.

“I’ve just come away from the debrief. Everybody’s downbeat, not to get a point, but, you know, looking at the detail.

“Just quickly getting into the detail of what can we do to move forwards in every single area of the race car, and how we operate the race car with strategy, and how we manage pit stops, and how we manage the preparation of bits and the full spectrum of being an F1 team.”

Cowell believed that both cars were capable of points, had the timings of the VSCs been kinder.

“It would have been wonderful to get a point today,” he reflected. “Until the VSC, we were hoping and fighting for both cars to get points.

“But in this industry, you’ve got to go chasing after everything. You’ve got to make the race car quicker. You’ve got to make the pit stops better. You’ve got to make the detail of everything better, and then you’re not relying on good or bad luck, you’re just relying on an awesome machine and an awesome team.

“So that’s that’s what we’ve got to strive towards.

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“Being in Q3 with both cars, Fernando fifth, is a huge reward for all the hard work that this team’s been putting in. So yes, the mood shoots up.

“Picking either the soft or the medium was something that was being debated from Thursday, even as people were travelling here.

“The car was quick on the soft as well as the medium in qualifying, a little bit quicker on the medium. But I think the setup, the package, the understanding of the package, which is down to good wind tunnel data, good driver in the loop simulator work, preparation work before getting to the track.

“So it’s lifting all of those aspects up that’s helped this week.”

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