Alonso hopes that upgraded car will "bring some motivation" to Aston Martin

On the back of Aston Martin's best qualifying result this season, two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso hopes that the upgraded car will bring "some motivation" to the British outfit.

Having struggled for pace all season long, Aston Martin's F1 car came alive in today's qualifying session at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The Silverstone-based outfit introduced an upgrade package this weekend, and the modified car helped the team put in its best qualifying performance of the season, getting both cars into Q3.

Although the softest compound is usually the best qualifying tyre, Pirelli introduced a brand-new compound, the C6 this weekend which looked very difficult to "switch on" today. As a result of these difficulties, Aston Martin sent their drivers out on to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari on the mediums in both Q2 and Q3 which worked absolutely fine.

On the back of his fifth-place qualifying result, Alonso stated: "Qualifying went better than we expected and it's a great result for the team to have both cars in Q3. We introduced a new package this weekend and so far the results have been positive.

“Definitely the new parts that we brought here, they’re performing well – we saw yesterday when we tested them and today’s the confirmation. At the same time we need to keep the feet on the ground – maybe Imola’s a good track for us and we need to wait for different tracks.

“But [I’m] happy for the team, proud of them. They’ve been working hard and this upgrade hopefully brings some motivation to the team. We were quite competitive on both the Medium and the Soft tyres, so we were able to try a different strategy throughout Qualifying.

"We have to keep our feet on the ground though and see how things go tomorrow in the race. I don't think we are as fast as P5, so let's see if we can keep these positions and score some points," said Alonso.

His team-mate Lance Stroll looked fairly quick as well. The Canadian got his car into Q3, and was just over a tenth of a second slower than Alonso. However, the tiny margins meant that he ended up three places behind in P8.

"A good day for us qualifying in P8. It all came together in these conditions; we made the right tyre choice with the Medium so that paid off and the nature of the track suits our car more.

"From what we can tell so far, the update looks like it's having a positive impact so it's an improvement, but there's still lots more performance for us to unlock. Tomorrow we will have a better idea of how we look in terms of true pace and if we can hold position."

Aston Martin team boss Andy Cowell praised his drivers, labelling Alonso's and Stroll's qualifying laps as "sensational laps".

"A tremendous team effort today brings us a well-deserved Qualifying result with Fernando in P5 and Lance in P8. The drivers did not put a wheel wrong with some sensational laps throughout all parts of Qualifying, making the most of a great car setup. The tyre strategy was extremely well judged, too, and that tyre preparation work started well before the event and paid off today.

"Securing our best Qualifying result of the year is a big boost for the 1,000 people in this team who have been working extremely hard to make improvements in all areas – not least with the updates we introduced here in Imola.

"We know how important Qualifying is at this track because overtaking is very difficult, however it's the race result that yields championship points."