Fernando Alonso has built a career on finding new ways to sell hope in F1. This year the sales pitch has stopped.
“I’m at peace because I understand the situation,” the two-time world champion told Motorsport.com in Miami. “The team explained to me that if we bring one or two tenths every race, it doesn’t change our position, we are P20 or P19 and the next car is one second in front.”
The gap he is describing is not to the leaders. It is to the next slowest car on the grid. From the driver who dragged unloved Ferraris and Renaults onto podiums, that is a new kind of admission.
The 25-lap limit
The pain has been measured in laps. In March, team principal Adrian Newey warned that the AMR26’s engine and hybrid vibrations travel through the stiff carbon chassis straight into the drivers’ fingers.
“Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage to his hands,” Newey said.
“Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.”
The Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park is 58 laps.
The verdict from the grandstands
By April, F1 fans had already delivered their own judgement. In a RacingNews365 reader poll asking which team had surprised them most in the opening rounds, 52.7% picked Aston Martin, miles clear of Red Bull’s slump on 16.7% and the joint shock of Mercedes’ three wins and McLaren’s struggles on 10.5% each.
Read also: Mourinho returns to Real Madrid with three fit centre-backs and 14 days to answer Barcelona
Every piece was supposed to be in place. Newey, arguably the most successful F1 car designer of his generation, arrived at Silverstone with the pen. Honda came in as a full works engine partner. Lawrence Stroll’s AMR Technology Campus was gearing up for its first serious title assault. Alonso, at 45, had one more real swing left. What arrived instead was a car that qualified on the back row for five races in a row.
‘A disastrous start’
Newey is no longer softening the language. Speaking before the Dutch Grand Prix, he called the season “a disastrous start” and admitted the target had been quietly rewritten.
“We’re clearly playing a big catch-up game,” Newey said. “Is it going to make us the quickest car? Unfortunately, not. But does it represent a good step forward from where we were? Yes, I believe it does.”
Hungary was meant to be the reset. Aston Martin brought a 16-part update package to the Hungaroring, effectively a B-spec car built around a new front wing, nose, floor, diffuser, sidepods and rear suspension. It was the biggest single upgrade in the paddock this year. It broke the run of back-row starts. It did not deliver points.
Read also: Jonas Vingegaard makes final decision on 2026 comeback
Stroll finished 13th, Alonso 14th, and Alonso called the result “a good baseline” to build the second half of the year around. Heading into the summer break Aston Martin lay 10th in the constructors’ championship on a single point, scored by Alonso at Monaco, ten adrift of Williams.
Honda’s upgrade heads to Zandvoort
Honda is bringing 30 extra horsepower to the Dutch Grand Prix, which runs 21-23 August at Zandvoort. Another update is queued for Baku. Newey, in a Honda partnership he now describes as much stronger than the one that started the year, is being asked to design his way out mid-season without a test day to help.
“Normally, if relationships improve, then performance also improves,” he said.
The next chance to test that theory comes at Zandvoort on 23 August.
Read also: Infantino reportedly offered Morocco the 2030 World Cup final in exchange for re-election support
Read also: Duplantis makes honest confession: "The dumbest thing I've ever done"
