A return to form may be a distant prospect for the struggling Aston Martin team, according to lead driver Fernando Alonso.

Last year, the team impressed with Alonso's early run of podium finishes, but this weekend in Austria, the Spaniard has been hovering around P15.

"It's going to be the same at Silverstone," he remarked at the Red Bull Ring.

"I know I'm being a bit repetitive, because we've been saying it for several races now, but F1 is like that. You have to talk to the media on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and it becomes a mess, because you always repeat the same thing."

The 42-year-old explained that his engineers have been diligently working to find more speed and improve handling through setup changes.

"We made some changes but we see that it doesn't change. It's not a setup problem, it's a car problem," Alonso stated.

"As I said in Spain, we have understood the direction a little, but we have to face this triple (header) of races so there has been no time to do anything. We have to suffer."

Alonso even hinted that Aston Martin's current struggles could extend beyond the summer break.

"We're going to bring something to Budapest, but I don't think we're focusing on Budapest, we're focusing on the whole year," he said. "We don't know if it's going to be the definitive solution."

"We're working hard, since the sprint race finished we changed the car from top to bottom - the mechanics didn't even have time to eat."

Alonso noted that his situation in Austria has been exacerbated by the condition of the engine in his car, which is nearing the end of its life.

"We have to do one more race with this engine, otherwise the numbers won't add up for 24 races," he said. "We can change it here and be P14 instead of P15, but it's one of the worst races so we're trying to use the worst engine." body check tags ::