The Spanish world champion Fernando Alonso has expressed deep frustration over Aston Martin’s difficult start to the 2026 Formula 1 season, admitting that the team will not see any significant performance improvements until after the summer break. This means a long and challenging wait of at least 10 more Grands Prix before any meaningful step forward is expected.
Aston Martin, in recent years, had made no secret of its strong ambition to focus heavily on the 2026 Formula 1 regulations in order to establish itself among the top teams on the grid. Team owner Lawrence Stroll left no stone unturned in building the project, aggressively recruiting top-level technical talent — most notably Adrian Newey — while also choosing Honda, the highly successful engine supplier that achieved multiple championship victories with Max Verstappen, as its new power unit partner.
However, nothing has gone according to expectations so far. Honda has found itself significantly behind the other engine manufacturers in terms of performance, and Aston Martin is currently only able to compete with the newly formed Cadillac team, which itself remains far away from the rest of the midfield and front-running teams. What was expected to be a leap forward has instead turned into a major disappointment across multiple areas.
To make matters worse, the situation inside the team has also raised questions, with reports suggesting that Adrian Newey, Aston Martin’s key technical figure, was last seen at the pit wall during the Australian Grand Prix on March 8, further fueling uncertainty around the team’s internal structure and development direction.
What was supposed to be a revolutionary project has instead turned into a difficult and inconsistent start, with the team struggling to extract performance from the package and lacking competitiveness across all types of circuits.
Another 10 races of struggle
Only four Grands Prix have taken place so far, but the road to recovery for Aston Martin still appears extremely long. According to Fernando Alonso, it feels like a journey through the desert, as he explained with clear resignation in interviews with Spanish media outlets AS and Marca during the Miami Grand Prix weekend.
“Unfortunately, speaking with you I will be repetitive, because we will not have improvements until the summer,” said Fernando Alonso. “We will have to manage this level of frustration within the team, but I believe we are calm and determined to have a better second half of the season.”
Alonso continued by stressing the scale of the performance gap Aston Martin is currently facing compared to the teams ahead:
“Even if we gained two or three tenths in every race, our position would not change. The car ahead of us is still one second faster. We will not improve performance until after the summer, it will not happen before race 14. There is a long way to go.”
“Until the problems are fully understood and solved, it is difficult to have the confidence needed to make real performance progress. At least finding the solution to the vibration issues has been a relief,” added Fernando Alonso.
For Aston Martin, the message is clear: the current package is not competitive enough to fight in the midfield, and without upcoming upgrades in the short term, the team faces a long and difficult stretch of races before any realistic turnaround can begin.
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