Aston Martin’s abject performance in Barcelona comes as no surprise to Fernando Alonso as he qualified last for his home race – but having to keep explaining the team’s many woes is starting to wear on him.
The world champion took 22nd, which ended a 42-race streak of outqualifying team-mate Lance Stroll, who was 21st and a second behind next slowest Cadillac and four seconds off pole.
Not discounting the start of 2026 when Aston Martin and its struggling engine partner Honda had no hope of completing a race distance, performance wise Barcelona is the team’s worst outing yet.
The challenging downforce demands and high temperatures are presenting a huge stress test, especially for teams lacking aerodynamic performance. But while the circuit layout tore open the lap time gaps between the top and midfield, Alonso waved away questions on whether Aston had been further exposed in Spain.
“No, no, no. Nothing has been exposed,” Alonso sighed. “We knew we have the worst car and the worst engine and we’ve been very clear in every race so far that we have to work.”
Expanding on his downshift issues on Saturday, which is a recurring problem between the in-house gearbox and the integration with the power unit, he said: “In some corners it felt like pulling a handbrake, complete rear locking with both rear wheels fully locked.
“In other corners I had what felt like half-throttle while braking, and then you just go straight on. So every lap is a bit of a lottery at the moment.”
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
Aston has decided to focus all its development efforts on one larger upgrade package that should arrive in the summer, as wasting resources on smaller, incremental upgrades won’t be enough to bring it into Q2 contention.
Honda, meanwhile, is also working to deploy an engine upgrade around the same time, without publicly committing to an exact timeline. Until Aston’s package arrives though, there is no hope of progress for the team, so repeating the same tune every week is starting to weigh on the two-time F1 champion.
“We opted for this strategy, we repeat every weekend, and we will arrive in Austria in two weeks and we will be last in qualifying, and you will tell me if that exposes some of the weaknesses of the car,” he said.
When further quizzed by the Spanish media, Alonso vented: “We repeat the same thing every weekend. It’s exhausting. We’re last, we know it, and we have no problem admitting it.
“We’re waiting for the second half of the season, and hopefully when the new car arrives, we can improve a bit. It’s all becoming very repetitive.
“We have a very poor engine, the worst one. We have very poor energy deployment. We have gearbox problems and aerodynamic problems. We’re working on all of it, and hopefully in the second half of the season we can give people something to cheer about.”
Additional reporting by Livia Veiga and Pol Hermoso
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