Aston Martin boss, Mike Krack admits that the raft of upgrades at Imola made the car more difficult to drive.

While Lance Stroll added two points to the Silverstone outfit's tally, for much of the weekend the Canadian and his teammate, Fernando Alonso were MIA.

The team brought the biggest upgrade package of all to Imola, including a new front wing, nose, floor body, diffuser, engine cover and rear suspension, however, almost from the outset it was on the back foot when Alonso crashed in opening practice, while an off in Q1 meant he failed to progress beyond the opening phase of qualifying for the first time this year.

Unhappy with the car, changes were made to Alonso's set-up overnight which meant he started the race from the pitlane, and while Stroll was able to climb through the field to ninth, his Spanish teammate used the race as a glorified test session.

While Krack believes the upgrades made a positive difference, he feels that they also made the car more 'nervous', hence Alonso's difficulties remaining on the black stuff.

"In Imola, when you start from where we started, it's difficult," said the German. "We come away with two points, I think it was quite a good outcome, it shows that the car is still capable of doing things.

"But we have also seen that it is difficult to drive," he admitted. "We had a couple of offs over the weekend. The one from Friday was actually impacting us the most because we were really on the back foot from that point onwards.

"We wanted to learn more, that's why we elected to start from the pitlane and make a change on the car to see if we can make it easier. We wanted to do better from what we have done. But it was also compromised a little bit by the events on Saturday."

There is no arguing that the Aston Martin of 2024 is not the same as its predecessor as the team continues to lose ground to its rivals and could soon be under threat from RB.

Admitting that the package was "not good enough", Krack acknowledges that the team must up its development programme if it is to stay in touch with the leaders in the midfield.

"We're not happy with two points, that is clear," he said. "But other people are also bringing upgrades, so it is always a relative game.

"It's tough, we must not underestimate that," he added. "I think, except one team, everybody has a list full of upgrades, so it shows how competitive the whole field is. We have to really keep pushing and bringing more stuff."