Racing
© Liauzh
Fernando Alonso crashed out at Turn 3 in SQ1 for the Canadian Grand Prix sprint qualifying, but still dragged Aston Martin into SQ2 on his earlier lap in a session that exposed both his mistake and the team’s clearest sign of progress this season.
Alonso was 14th when he began his final SQ1 attempt at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, having already done enough to stay on course for progression. On the approach to the Turn 3-4 sequence, he missed the braking point, locked the front-left and went straight into the barriers, with damage to the front of the AMR26 ending his session.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin driver, immediately accepted the error over team radio. “Yeah, sorry. Lock up, mate,” he said.
He later told Sky Sports F1 the incident came from pushing beyond where the car really belonged. “I locked up the front, and there is no room to avoid anything here in Canada. Too much on the limit. We are a little behind with the pace, so we were pushing seven or eight places more than we should have.”
That admission mattered because Aston Martin had arrived in Montreal showing more life than it had in the opening part of the season. After the team’s difficult first four rounds, Friday offered more encouraging pace, particularly on short runs and in traction zones, a key area at this circuit. The car also looked better in slow corners and through quick direction changes, which allowed Alonso to run closer to the midfield than he had managed on previous weekends.
Even with the crash, that earlier SQ1 lap was enough to put him into SQ2, a rare positive marker for a team that has spent much of the year fighting the limitations of the AMR26. But the accident also turned that progress into a missed opportunity, because Alonso could not complete his final run or chase a stronger result.
Instead, he was left 16th on the sprint grid, a disappointing outcome for Aston Martin after a Friday that had briefly suggested the team might finally be in position to convert improved pace into a more meaningful result.