F1 | Alonso still sees room to improve Aston Martin before upgrades
Fernando Alonso believes Aston Martin still has room to unlock more performance from the AMR26 before the arrival of the team’s major upgrade package, which is not expected until after the summer break.
The Canadian Grand Prix marked the second consecutive Formula 1 weekend in which most teams introduced updates for their 2026 challengers, but Aston Martin Racing was notably absent from the FIA’s official document listing technical changes.
That does not mean the AMR26 has remained completely unchanged. Some modifications have been made to improve the car’s handling, but no major aerodynamic developments are expected before late August or early September at the earliest. Until then, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll must work with the package currently available, and the Spanish driver believes there is still performance left to extract.
When asked at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve how much more the team could gain from the current Aston Martin package before the summer upgrades arrive, Fernando Alonso replied: “There are probably still a couple of tenths to be found with this package. We’re still learning things and solving setup-related issues.”
“The gearbox in Miami was a bit of a headache. Here, we’ve resolved that, and we’re able to attack the corners a little more aggressively. So it feels like at every race we’re extracting a bit more performance. So yes, in the meantime, as you said, until the aerodynamic package makes a big step forward, we need to optimise the rest of the car.”
In fact, despite qualifying only 19th in Miami, Fernando Alonso said the overall feeling with the car had already started to improve, and in Canada, Aston Martin came much closer to reaching Q2: “The final result doesn’t change much for us, since we were still knocked out in Q1. But I don’t know, I have the feeling that this weekend we’ve been a little more competitive. I felt fast in the car, and I noticed a bit more connection with the package, trying to get the maximum out of everything. So you could say we’ve become a bit more competitive.”
“We were also only a couple of tenths away from Q2. I think it was the first time this year — previously we were on average 1.1 or 1.2 seconds away from getting through to Q2, and here we got a bit closer. But there’s still a long way to go.”
Given the unusual Sprint weekend format, teams had the opportunity to make setup changes after the short race, and when asked whether Aston Martin had made significant adjustments, Fernando Alonso explained:
“Small changes, yes, mainly from a mechanical point of view, trying to get a bit more front-end grip, which we were missing in the Sprint. It worked well, I think, and I noticed the car was a bit better.”
However, as Fernando Alonso himself concluded, if rain arrives for Sunday’s race, everything could change.
In conclusion, Fernando Alonso’s pragmatic approach to Aston Martin’s current development plateau highlights his unmatched capacity to extract performance from compromised machinery. By pinpointing and curing the complex mechanical gearbox anomalies that derailed their Miami campaign, the Silverstone squad has demonstrated that lap time can still be found through diligent trackside optimization rather than relying solely on wind-tunnel upgrades. As the team waits for its major late-summer aerodynamic overhaul, maximizing front-axle mechanical grip will remain essential to surviving the dense midfield battle. In an era where a mere two-tenths of a second can dictate a driver’s progression into Q2, Alonso’s technical feedback and setup adaptability will be the defining assets keeping Aston Martin afloat until the factory can deliver the raw downforce steps required to challenge the frontrunners.
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