Fernando Alonso came into the Austrian Grand Prix hopeful for an improvement from Aston Martin after their recent struggles. It seems as if 2024 might roughly be following a similar trajectory to 2023. Alonso began the year with two top-six finishes in the first four races. He also qualified on the front three rows at four of the first five events. It wasn’t quite the heights of last year, when he’d scored six podiums by round eight, but Aston were still competitive. They were initially able to battle with the likes of Mercedes and McLaren. Alonso only added two more podiums to his tally in th…