Starting ninth on the grid, Fernando Alonso fears that Aston Martin is losing ground to its rivals.

While a damaged floor cost him in qualifying in Monaco, in Austria, where he qualified seventh, the Spaniard insisted he was still happy with the car, feeling his relatively lowly position was due to the conditions, track limits and the timing of his run.

However, out-paced by the Mercedes, Ferraris and McLarens at Silverstone, there was no disguising the two-time world champion's frustration.

"Obviously, I'm never satisfied with between P9 and P12," he said. "I think it was not the strongest qualifying for the team so far but difficult to see where we can do a little bit better.

"Maybe 0.1s, 0.15s, but more than P8 or something like that, it was impossible," he admitted.

"We need to keep working, understanding, a few qualifying already on circuits that we were not competitive," he continued. "Barcelona, Austria and Silverstone, all three of them seem a little bit similar in a way in track characteristics. So, we need to understand that.

"They've been very fast," he said of McLaren. "They deserve the position they are in. It's not like a casualty. They've been fast and improving. So, I'm happy for them. Especially after a few races, I think McLaren was very fast last year in Austria and Silverstone. They were so-so in the championship and this year they are also fast in certain circuits."

The Spaniard believes that during the upcoming summer break his team needs to reset itself for the second half of the season.

"I think we need to go through Budapest and Spa and make a reset after that and see where we are," he said.

Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone here.